page break

Editorial

"Nobody notices a band rotunda until someone wants to remove it" — is how we open our story on Nicholson's restaurant further on in this issue.

Indeed the same could be said of many of our buildings. In fact, nobody notices anything until one day it isn't there.

We take so much of our surroundings for granted and not a day seems to go by without the disappearance of yet another old, familiar building which tends to be treasured when it's too late.

Unfortunately too, not much of the replacement architecture is as satisfying as what went before it, nor is every remodelling as sympathetic to the existing structure as Nicholson's restaurant was to Oriental Bay's former band rotunda.

Retaining facades of buildings is only paying lip service to building conservation. The BNZ building currently going up in Auckland's Queen Street is a classic example of this — it is what it is, a facade.

Everywhere we look now there are voids — although if you're not quick the void is likely to be substituted for yet another meaningless high-rise. Onwards and upwards has never been more the case.

There is a void now in Park Road, where once the Auckland hospital buildings stood resolutely — they were not without historic significance, nor were they without class. We can only hope that the structure that is destined for the site will offer more than the striated concrete monolith across the road.

Our built environment is in a state of flux — bringing with it a sense of insecurity, which pervades, sometimes unwittingly, our lives.

We should be rejoicing at the spurt of building growth which has suddenly gripped our cities — however, too often it appears a stranglehold. But many of us only feel mournful as we stand silently by or helplessly protest the destruction of the familiar.

Maybe we don't air our protestations vehemently enough, maybe it's all happening at such a rate that only the most ardent conservationists are mindful of every developer's next move.

Like a giant chessboard, we are but pawns in a city of buildings which rise or fall depending on who makes the next move. The moves are not always considered and there are only hollow victories to be won. The chessmen may even be plastic. The motives are often selfish.

It shouldn't be that we follow the inevitable path of destruction which is taking place in American cities and elsewhere. We can't continue to tear down the old, only to replace them with new, but transitory structures that are sometimes meaningless. Does our throwaway society extend itself to our buildings?

Let's be more vocal, more determined to hold on to the honest buildings of our time. Let us also entertain propositions of the kind that is happening with the Auckland Ferry Buildings (see page 7) — there are ways of retaining our heritage, while at the same time, making buildings that are functional and worthwhile.