It is not known if it was a copy of the 1931 edition or the 1935 edition. See E. A., Plischke, Ein Leben mit Architektur (Wien: Löcker Verlag, 1989), p. 233.
Graham Dawson, to Julia Gatley, (10 December 1994).
See Department of Housing Construction, General Report on State Housing in New Zealand (Wellington: Ministry of Works, 1943).
See Di Stewart, and Associates, "Savage Crescent State Housing Precinct, Palmerston North: An Historical and Architectural Overview," (Palmerston North, Palmerston North City Council, undated c.1993-94).
Of the thirteen multi-unit schemes built in Wellington and Auckland, the remaining seven comprised little more than a series of double storeyed row or terrace houses with skillion roofs and overhanging eaves. They are the Victory Flats, Adelaide Road, Wellington; Jackson Street Flats, Petone; Petone Flats, Adelaide Street, Petone; Tennyson Street Flats, Petone; Randwick Road Flats, Lower Hutt; Wakefield Street Flats, Lower Hutt; and Parnell Flats, Parnell, Auckland.
H. T. Armstrong, Minister of Housing, "Statement Showing Progress of Government Housing Scheme From Inception," (June 1 1939), National Archives, Wellington, NASH 217/0720.
See "Random Notes," Building Progress (April 1940), v. 5, n. 4, p. 21; "Large Block of Flats," Building Progress (June 1940), v. 5, n. 6, p. 7; "Tenders," Building Progress (September 1940), v. 5, n. 9, p. 19; State Housing: Scheme Said to be Uneconomic," Dominion (September 9 1940), p. 12; "Tenders: Housing Construction Department," Dominion (November 9 1940), p. 18; "Random Notes," Building Progress (December 1940), v. 5, n. 12, p. 24; "State Housing," Building Progress (March 1941), v. 6, n. 3, p. 24; "Random Notes," Building Progress (June 1941), v. 6, n. 6, p. 8; "Building News From All Quarters," Building Progress (April 1942), v. 7, n. 4, p. 23; "News in Brief: Dixon Street Flats," Dominion (August 18 1943), p. 6; "Dixon Street Flats: Opening on Saturday," Dominion (September 2 1943), p. 7; "Multi-Unit Block: New Wellington State Flats; Building Officially Opened," Dominion (September 6 1943), p. 4; "New Flats Opened: Block in Dixon Street," Evening Post (September 6 1943), p. 6; "Housing in Wartime," Dominion (September 9 1943), p. 6; "Dixon Street Flats: Advertisement Criticised by Mr Semple," Dominion (September 22 1943), p. 8; "State Housing Policy: Labour's Case Stated; Mr Semple's Address," Dominion (September 23 1943), p. 8; "Gigantic Building Programme: Mr Jacobson's Outline," Dominion (September 24 1943), p. 9; "Government's Majority Reduced, Gain by National Party at Expense of Labour," Dominion (September 27 1943), p. 7; "Dixon Street Flats," New Zealand Home and Building (Summer 1944), v. 7, n. 1, pp. 20-23, 47.
The building was opened on 4 September 1943. See "Multi-Unit Block: New Wellington State Flats; Building Officially Opened," Dominion (September 6 1943), p. 4; "New Flats Opened: Block in Dixon Street," Evening Post (September 6 1943), p. 6. The certificate of completion was not issued until 1 March 1944. Director of the Department of Housing Construction, correspondence to the Manager of State Advances Corporation, (July 20 1944), National Archives, Wellington, File SAC Series 1, 35/152/3, Part 1.
Newman, correspondence to Wilson, (January 16 1947), National Archives, Wellington, File HD 3/1/12 Part 1.
Maria Newman, personal communication (February 1995).
K. J. Davis, "A Liberal Turn of Mind: The Architectural Work of F Gordon Wilson, 1936-1959, A Cultural Analysis," (BArch research report, Victoria University of Wellington, 1987); An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand ed. A. H. McLintock, (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1966), v. 3, p. 667; Bruce Petry, "The Public Architecture of Gummer and Ford," (MArch thesis, University of Auckland, 1992); "Obituary: Francis Gordon Wilson," Journal of the N. Z. I. A. (March 1959), v. 26, n. 2, p. 56-59.
Gummer and Ford buildings from this period with which Wilson is likely to have been involved include the Dilworth Trust Building (1925), the Remuera Library (1925), the Auckland Railway Station (1927) and the Dingwell Orphanage (1929) in Auckland and the National War Memorial Carillon (1930-31), the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum (1931-36), the New Zealand Insurance Company Building (1936) and the public library in Wellington (1936). According to Gummer's son John, Wilson was the principal designer of the Wellington Public Library. John Gummer, correspondence to Ken Davis, (July 7 1987), Davis, "A Liberal Turn of Mind," appendix. Their pioneering domestic works include Tauroa (1916) and Craggy Range (1918), both in Hawkes Bay.
Ian Lochhead, "New Zealand Architecture in the Thirties: The Impact of Modernism," Landfall (December 1984), n. 152, v. 38, n. 4, p. 468.
Ford published a book Earthquakes and Building Construction in 1925 and it has been suggested that this was the first book dealing with seismic performance of building structures to appear in English. Paul Walker, "Shaky Ground," Interstices (1992), n. 2, p. 31. Walker refers to Robert Park, "Development of Structural Design Procedures for Earthquake Resistance in New Zealand," Transactions of the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (1987), v. 14, n. 1, p. 23.
Linda Tyler, "The Architecture of E. A. Plischke in New Zealand, 1939-1962," (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 1986), pp. 1-33. See also E. A. Plischke, On the Human Aspect in Modern Architecture (Wien, München: Verlag Kurt Wedl, 1969), pp. 15-31.
"Immigration of Refugees to New Zealand," cited, Ann Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay: Refugees From Hitler in New Zealand 1936-46 (Wellington: Allen and Unwin, and the Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1988), p. 146. According to this reference, 1043 refugees had arrived in New Zealand from 1933 to 1939 inclusive.
These figures are from Lochore, From Europe to New Zealand, pp. 77-78, and Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay, p. 147.
Dawson, letter to Ken Davis, (July 13 1987), Davis, "A Liberal Turn of Mind," appendix, and Beard, personal correspondence, (November 30 1994). In his letter to Ken Davis, Dawson also credits Helmut Einhorn with having worked in the Department but this is not the case for Einhorn was actually employed by Crichton McKay and Haughton from the time of his arrival in New Zealand until he joined the airforce in 1944, Ester Einhorn, personal communication (December 2 1994).
Ester Einhorn, personal communication (December 2 1994) and Helmut Einhorn cited, Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay, p. 81.
The European qualifications and training were certainly viewed as superior by the European architects themselves. Helmut Einhorn cited, Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay, p. 82.
Lochhead, "New Zealand Architecture in the Thirties," pp. 466-481. He states: "But while Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and their contemporaries were re-writing the language of modern architecture, New Zealand architects continued to use the traditional vocabulary of the past inflected, more often than not, with a recognisable colonial accent."
Tyler, "The Architecture of E. A. Plischke in New Zealand," pp. 42-43. This scenario is echoed in the case of Fritz/Fred Farrar, another fully qualified European architect to be employed as a draughtsman by the department, Dr Tom Farrar, personal communication (December 8 1994).
D. G. Porter, "Exile Brought Fresh Vision to NZ Architecture," Dominion (April 6 1963), p. 10.
"The 'E. A. P.' signature was removed from the designs after submission to the main draughting room. Plischke had copies of the original drawings made which are held in his archive, Vienna." Tyler, "The Architecture of E. A. Plischke in New Zealand," p. 52.
Contract drawings HD 124/10/2 carry the initials K.R.R., T.L.M., A.M.G., R.H.S., O.A.J., W.J.B., T.M.C., C.J.K., E.M.C., L.T.H., E.S., G.C., and V.J.. The largest number were drawn by K.R.R. (Ken Rowe). Micro-fiche copies of drawings held by Housing New Zealand Ltd, Lower Hutt. Photographic reproductions of the micro-fiche held by the author.
National Archives, Wellington, SAC Series 1, 35/152/3, Parts 1 and 2, and HD Acc W1353, 124/10/2, Part 4.
Plischke, On the Human Aspect in Modern Architecture p. 248.
Contract drawings HD 124/10/2 are dated September 1940.
Tyler, "The Architecture of E. A. Plischke in New Zealand," p. 52, refers to the "original drawings" of the Dixon Street Flats, signed by Plischke and held in his archive in Vienna. She states that Plischke was engaged on this project in 1943 (p. 47). She does not take account of the fact that the contract drawings are dated 1940. If Plischke was prepared to claim the original design as his own in his letter-tapes to Tyler, why did he fail to mention this in his autobiography and instead credit the design to the department? Further, Antony Matthews, "E. A. Plischke - The Connection Between Theory and Form," (BArch sub-thesis, University of Auckland, 1986), appendix C, includes photocopies of drawings of the Dixon Street Flats which carry Plischke's initials. The drawings are dated 1942. Again, they do not support the claim that Plischke was ultimately responsible for the design of the building, only that he worked on the drawings once construction was underway. My thanks to Linda Tyler for drawing this sub-thesis to my attention.
"State Advances Corporation of New Zealand," Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand (1940) B-13, p. 13.
"Large Block of Flats," Building Progress (June 1940), v. 5, n. 6, p. 7.
National Archives, Wellington, SAC Series 1, 35/152/3 Parts 1 and 2, and HD Acc W1353, 124/10/2, Part 4.
"Multi-Unit Block: New Wellington State Flats; Building Officially Opened," Dominion (September 6 1943), p. 4.
"National Loss - Death of Mr F. Gordon Wilson, Government Architect," New Zealand Home and Building (April 1 1959), v. XXI, n. 11, p. 21.
Wilson's authorship is confirmed by:
(1) Jim Beard, a former employee of Wilson in the Ministry of Works, who remembers hearing Wilson claim the Dixon Street Flats as his own, Jim Beard, personal communication (December 9 1994). Beard was employed in the Architectural Division of the Ministry of Works from c.1950;
(2) Ester Einhorn who refers to it as: "His [Wilson's] baby," Ester Einhorn, personal communication (December 2 1994). Ester is Helmut Einhorn's widow. She and Helmut had been in Wellington since July 1939;
(3) Graham Dawson, an architect in the Department of Housing Construction from 1939 who recalls that the Berhampore, Dixon Street and Greys Avenue Flats were "mainly Wilson's" designs. Dawson remembers Plischke being engaged on new house types, site layouts, and shopping and community centres rather than on multi-unit blocks. He does, however, admit that Plischke's influence on Wilson must have been considerable and that discussions and criticisms could well have resulted in alterations to Wilson's design, Dawson, correspondence to Davis, (July 13 1987), Davis, "A Liberal Turn of Mind," appendix.
Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" trans. Donald F Bouchard and Sherry Simon, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews ed. Donald F Bouchard, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 122.
It was not until 1969, six years after his return to Austria, that the New Zealand Institute of Architects relaxed its requirement and awarded Plischke with honorary membership. Tyler, "The Architecture of E. A. Plischke in New Zealand," p. 180.
That Plischke was not successful in his application to head the School of Architecture, University of Auckland might be cited as further evidence that he was victimised, humiliated and prejudiced in New Zealand. The reasons for this decision are beyond the scope of this paper but, as with the attribution of the Dixon Street Flats, I would suggest that there was more at stake than prejudice alone.
It can be argued that it was benign of Wilson to employ Plischke in any capacity for the reason that Plischke was German speaking, he was a potential spy, and he was labelled an 'enemy alien.'
Foucault, "What is an Author?" p. 122.
Foucault, "What is an Author?" p. 123.
I would be hesitant in looking for this relationship between the Dixon Street Flats and Massey House, Wellington (1952), as the latter is attributed to both Plischke and Cedric Firth.
The Morelli method of attribution abandoned the convention of concentrating on the most obvious characteristics and instead concentrates on minor details. Carlo Ginzburg, "Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method," History Workshop: A Journal of Socialist Historians (Spring 1980), n. 9, pp. 5-36.
Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork (London: The Architectural Press, 1954), p. 79.
Foucault provides the example of a novelist who is responsible for more than his/her own text and cites Ann Radcliffe as one such novelist. She did not simply write The Mysteries of Udolpho and other novels but also made possible the appearance of the Gothic Romance at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Foucault, "What is an Author?" p. 132.
Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture; The Growth of a New Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 834
Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History," The Art Bulletin (1991), v. LXXIII, n. 2, p. 183.
In giving examples of buildings attributed to Wilson I chose not to mention two later examples of the slab apartment block which were designed by the department, by that time the Housing Division of the Ministry of Works, under Gordon Wilson, by that time Government Architect. They are the Gordon Wilson Flats, The Terrace, Wellington (1955-59), and the Upper Greys Avenue Flats, Auckland (1957-59). I chose not to mention them earlier because, with their two storeyed maisonettes, these blocks are linked to a particular building which followed the Dixon Street Flats: Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation at Marseille (1946-52), completed during the interim years. The latter has been described by Bill Risebero as "perhaps the single most influential architectural work of the post-war years." Bill Risebero, The Story of Western Architecture (London: The Herbert Press, 1985), p. 245.
Foucault distinguishes between mediate authors and fundamental authors, the latter term being reserved for the initiators of discursive practice. Foucault, "What is an Author?" pp. 133-136.
Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author," Image, Music, Text ed. Stephen Heath, trans. Stephen Heath, (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1984), pp. 142-148.
Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 14-15.
Colomina, Privacy and Publicity p. 204.
Bill Alington, Jim Beard, George Porter, Bill Toomath, and Tony Treadwell interviewed by Philippa Hoeta, (15 December 1994).
P Morton Shand, for example, wrote a series of essays titled "Scenario for a Human Drama," The Architectural Review (July, Aug, Sep, Oct 1934), v. 76, and (Jan, Feb, Mar 1935), v. 77.