Why this book and why now? 

Matt Arnold: In the same way you can’t talk about New Zealand music without talking about the Dunedin Sound, you can’t talk about New Zealand architecture without acknowledging the Christchurch Style. Yet there’s never been a book dedicated to it and Straight Line slides neatly into that gap. 

The Christchurch Style is an abiding interest for you both.

Mary Gaudin: Christchurch is my home town and where I spend much of my time when visiting New Zealand, so perhaps it’s just that I’m most familiar with these buildings. As a kid I loved the Warren & Mahoney public library and Christchurch Town Hall. I think the architecture you experience as a child really stays with you. 

Tell us about the title.

MA: It came from a conversation with Sir Miles Warren. I half-jokingly accused him of not drawing a curve for the first 30 years of his career and the title was his smiling reply. I later learned the artist Carmen Herrera said something similar.

How are the houses faring – are they appreciated and respected?

MA: Whenever a home of this style pops up for sale the open homes are unusually popular and the same faces always there – architecture weirdos like me. We greet each other with an awkward nod and pad around in our socks pointing and saying things like “negative detail” to nobody in particular.

Half a century on, what lessons can we learn from them?

MA: There’s no escaping the fact these were expensive homes, but they are made from very modest materials. There are no gold taps or marble benchtops, the architects spent a morning designing the kitchen and three days detailing the fireplace. It was all about the architecture, not the fittings. In that respect there’s economy and permanence. If you look at the Webb Flats by Warren & Mahoney, they’re affordable housing without design compromise. They’re perfectly formed, finished with simple, hard-wearing ‘tenant-resistant’ materials and are still the local benchmark for the inner-city bachelor pad.

There’s also a lot to be said for prescribed rooms: a kitchen; a dining room; a living room; a bedroom; a bathroom; a toilet. Today, it seems the aim is often to merge these six rooms into two. We cook in the living room. The toilet goes next to the bath. And the bath is in the bedroom. The concept of open plan was one of economy and efficiency, but when your house is 400 square metres... I don’t know.

How many have we lost to earthquakes? 

MA: Steel-reinforced concrete is pretty strong and holds up to a good shaking, but it’s expensive to repair and many owners simply didn’t have the energy or inclination to fight for restoration. We lost a lot of great modernist buildings to ruthless demolition. That said, there are some wonderful stories of stubbornness and dogged determination. Miles Warren’s seminal Dorset St Flats are painstakingly being put back together. The Christchurch Town Hall is another example on a much grander scale.

Pick a favourite. Go on. 

MA: The Steven House by Peter Beaven. The modernist’s Toad Hall.

MG: The Blaxall house by Griffiths & Moffat. The house is brimming with quiet drama – rooms and spaces are revealed slowly and gently. The Japanese idea of water flowing through the house, dividing spaces, gives the house a mediative quality, while having the feeling of being firmly rooted in New Zealand. 

I Never Met a Straight Line I Didn’t Like

$80, straightlinebook.nz

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