WHAKAAHUA TE WĀHI • PLACE • PROFILE
Modern
love
What parts of a city would you forgo in the name of progress and what parts would you hang on to? Jacqui Gibson learns more while touring some of Wellington’s Modernist icons
WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in Wellington’s CBD. Six of us are crowding around Karen Astwood, Area Manager Central Region for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, leaning in to hear her speak over the commotion of wind and traffic. We’re the final stragglers in a group of more than 30 people who’ve turned out for today’s Modern Wellington Tour on the final day of Wellington Heritage Week, an annual festival in its fourth year. This year, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is a major sponsor of Wellington Heritage Week and has six events in the festival line-up.
“These are the sorts of things people are talking about. I don’t have the answers. But it’s wonderful to have agencies like Heritage New Zealand and speakers like the University of Auckland’s Associate Professor Julia Gatley and Senior Lecturer Bill McKay, as well as architect Ken Davis, championing the topic at Wellington Heritage Week.” Karen tells us it’s the second year she’s hosted the tour. Both years the tours have sold out. “People are clearly interested in the topic. And it’s great you’re here.”
The goal of today’s 90-minute tour, she explains, is to showcase Wellington’s Modern heritage and to help people better understand where it came from.
When I catch up with festival director and founder David Batchelor a week before the tour, he tells me Modernism is hot right now. “The question is: do we save Wellington’s Modern heritage or get rid of it to make way for development? Do buildings less than a century old qualify as heritage? Do we even like the look of these often paredback buildings?
Dixon Street Flats, central Wellington, completed in 1944 as part of the first Labour Government’s state housing programme.
22 Ngahuru • Autumn 2021
Heritage New Zealand