N.Z. Standardised Design Disliked

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31382, 30 May 1967, Page 16

N.Z. Standardised Design Disliked

Standardised design in New Zealand was criticised by Mr P. J. Beaven, an architect member of the Christchurch Civic Trust, at the trust’s annual meeting last night

New Zealand was a country full of creative people with insufficient to do, he said. There was little opportunity for good design. One reason for this, he said, was centralised control and standardising of so many things. Enthusiasm was what the country needed, he added. In various meetings with outside groups during the year, he had been impressed by the way in which people had been immediately interested in the design and aesthetic values oi new projects. New buildings should be planned for people, Mr Bea ven said. The new Bank erf

i* New Zealand building in the e Square was well proportioned . but rather than a heritage of beauty it was more a heriy tage of money. “The proportion is good 5 but it fails at the human , level,” he added. “The rather y dark, forbidding base is not for people and it is rather ie as though a steel hand will n pull you in and make a le count” ie Unless the human values ie of building were considered, n people would never get out of ie their motor cars and walk in if a city which was one of the most pleasant of human settle vities. A city was after all a- man’s most precious collecif tive invention.