CONCLUSIONES

94

J.

_{Binney, ]. Bassett & E. Olsen, The People and the Land Te Tangata me Te Tangata: An Illustrated History}

of

_New Zealand, 1820- 1920, _{Allen & Unwin, Auckland, 1990, pp. 262-66, 287.}

95 _{H.B. Scammell, ed., (yclopedia}

of

_{Valuable Receipts: A Treasure-House}

of

_{Useful Knowledge For the Every-D}

qy Wants

of

Life, Planet Publishing, St Louis, Mo. & Wm. Gribble & Co., Auckland, 1897, pp. 760-98, 803-23. A. Martin, School of Engineering and Construction, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, Lower Hutt, facsimile correspondence with the author, 13 December 1994.

1 63

What both publications had in common was their acknowled_gment of the financial constraints and limited physical resources available to their target audience. Whereas Downing wrote for the educated home-owner, who, it was hoped, would use his texts as an aid to improved relations with an architect, the contributors to household encyclopedias addressed their publications to 'country settlers . . . compelled, by the exigencies of their location, to become their own architects'.97 That Henry Scammell should simultaneously publish his Cyclopedia in New Zealand as well as in the American Midwest attests to the common colonial experience that connected these two environments and ensured the usefulness of American architectural publications in New Zealand.

After 1900 Frank Kidder's Architects' and Builders' Handbook, an American technical manual that

was addressed to a narrower professional audience, enjoyed a wide circulation in New Zealand.

Kidder's Handbook went through numerous editions between 1900 and 1940, of which three at

least are known to have been available in New Zealand. Wellington architect William Gray

Young owned the 1906 edition,98 and a copy of the 191 6 edition was in the library of Collins

Architects of Christchurch.99 In 1932 the Journal

of

the

N.Z.IA

published a review of the

eighteenth edition of Kidder's handbook. By contrast with the reception sometimes accorded American professional publications, the anonymous reviewer enthusiastically praised this voluminous publication.too

The great service which editions of this remarkable work have conferred upon all those who have to do with structural desi_gn, specifying and carrying out the supervision of buildings is continued in this eighteenth

97 _{Brett's Colonists' Guide, p. 723.}

98 _{R.L.J. Vosterrnans, 'William Gray Young, Architect, 1885-1962', B. Arch. Research Report, School of Architecture} and Design, Victoria University of Wellington, 1982, p. 115.

99 _{Collins Architects' office copy of Kidder's handbook had been awarded to Edgar West when he was a student at} the Canterbury College School of Art. As the prize had been donated to the School by the Canterbury Branch of the N.Z.I.A. this suggests the Institute's official endorsement of the handbook.

edition. . . . The handbook is undoubtedly one of the most useful reference books for everyday use available to the architect in English­ speaking countries . ... The handbook is so well known that there is little need to state that it lived up to the standard of past editions and is of great value to all who have to do with building work.101

Described as 'that well-known vademecum' of architectural books even as late as 1959, Kidder's

handbook was first copyrighted in 1884 and had had a total issue of 62,000 by 1916.102 _{In the} same year it ran to 1816 pages of information about everything from 'Practical Arithmetic, Geometry and Trigonometry' and 'Strength of Materials and Stability of Structures' to a list of 'American Periodicals Devoted to the Interest of Architecture and Building'.103 _{As a reference} text, which seems to have been widely used and well-respected in New Zealand, it is difficult to calculate the precise impact Kidder's Handbook might have had on local building practice. Nevertheless its presence in New Zealand provides a backdrop against which the local enthusiasm for adopting American construction methods, discussed in the previous chapter, might be better understood.

Not only did specific designs and construction methods reproduced in American architectural publications have an impact in New Zealand, but the books themselves were also influential

models of professional activity. In the first volume of the Cyciopedia

of

New Zealand (1897) there

appeared an entry concerning the Wanganui architectural firm of Pinches & Co. in which it was written that:

Messrs. Pinches and Co. have quite recently initiated a most remarkable scheme, and one that is likely to revolutionise the building trade of this part of the Colony. In an exceedingly neat circular of some dozen pages issued by the firm, specifications, plans, and agreements for any kind of home are offered free, on the condition that the firm supply the building 101 _{'Reviews', Journal}

ef

_{the N.Z. Institute}

ef

_{Architects, Volume 1 1 , No. 1, April 1 932, pp. 23-24.} 102 _{Obituary of J.T. Mair, Journal}

ef

_{the N.Z.IA., Vol. 26, No. 1 0, November 1 959, p. 282.}

103 _{F.E. Kidder, The Architects' and Builders' Pocket-Book - a Handbook for Architects, Structural Engineers, Builders and}

1 65

materials.1 04

This constitutes the earliest known instance of a New Zealand architect emulating his American peers in an attempt to expand his domestic practice.1 05 The principal of one of only two Wanganui practices listed in the Cyclopedia, William Pinches had been born and trained in England, where he worked as draughtsman with the Colne Valley Ironworks in Essex before immi_grating to New Zealand in 1874.106 Typical then of those who were to follow his example, Pinches' back_ground and the description of his publishing initiative are more suggestive of the business of building than the art of architecture. At a time when architects were becoming increasingly concerned about their professional status, Pinches and Company's innovative scheme was the first hint of the potential for conflict within the competitive market of domestic architecture that was to set builders against architects in the early decades of the twentieth

century.

Despite the 'revolutionary' intent of William Pinches' project, however, it was another 1 5 years or more before New Zealand architects began to produce pattern books that offered a significant challenge, in either number or size, to the American pattern and plan books that continued to find their way into the country. One of the most prolific local authors of pattern books was G.W. Phillips of Christchurch who produced a number of builder's guides and plan books in the early twentieth century (see fig. 38). In his 1913 publication Details and Specification . . . for New Zealand Homes Bungalows Residences Etc. Phillips illustrated numerous exterior and interior details

104 _(yclopedia

of

_{New Zealand, Volume 1 - Wellington Provincial District, Cyclopeclia Co. Ltd., Wellington, 1897, p. 1408.}

It should be noted here that because the subjects paid for their own entries in the (yclopedia the tone of the text is

often self-congratulatory.

105 _{Timber merchants had been supplying house elevations in their sales catalogues for quite some time by this date.}

See, for example, Findlay & Co.'s Illustrated Catalogue of Cottages, Doors, Sashes, Mouldings, Architraves, and Every

Description

of

Furnishings for Building Purposes of 1 874. Eph-B-BUILDING-SUPPLIES-1 874-01 -03, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. Salmond, pp. 96-100.

in order to assist the builder to construct all the necessary features of a 'modern' house.107 _{In the} same volume he also included 16 different floor plans for a five-room balloon frame house.1 08 No exterior elevations were provided to accompany these plans, some of which were for simple villas with front access to a central corridor on either side of which the living and sleeping rooms are arranged.1 09 _{Two plans offered side entry to the building, as one would expect in a bungalow,}

and three provided direct access from the kitchen to the living room via a servery or larder which is a design element commonly found in American houses of the period. The absence of elevations makes it impossible to determine the way in which Phillips' intended his plans to be expressed in three dimensions. Only one of the plans includes an inside toilet, whereas in Fred Hodgson's

Common-Sense Stair Building and Handrailing of 1907, which was published in Chicago and available in New Zealand, 17 out of the 47 house plans illustrated had a toilet in the bathroom.1 10 _{Jeremy Ashford has observed that the 'American practice of putting the toilet in}

the bathroom' was rare in New Zealand bungalows even in the 1920s, suggesting one aspect of domestic planning that was not greatly affected by the example of American plan book houses.1 1 1

106 _{yclopedia of New Zealand, Volume 1, p. 1408.}

107 _{Details illustrated by Phillips include doors, fences, foundations, eaves treatments, windows, dados, and hall} arches. In Details and Specification he also provides the reader with a standard specification format to assist him or her

in framing a builder's contract. ₆

108 _{Recommended construction is t red pine framing with 2 x 4 studs spaced at 1 8 in. centres to be clad in} rusticated or bevelled back weather ards. G. W. Phillips, Details and Specification . . . for New Zealand Homes Bungalows Residences Etc., the author, Christchurch, 1913; Supplement to Details and Specification, Approximate Estimates, n.p. 109 _{By way of a contrast, Phillips' Designs for New Zealand Homes & Residences of 1909 does include elevations and} these are generally in a conservative villa style. Published in Christchurch by the author, this work features a number of floor plans of such a fanciful nature as to make them purely ornamental in appearance.

1 10 _{Eldon Peters of Chapman Oulsnam and Associates, Engineers and Architects, New Plymouth now holds new} Plymouth architect M.G.B. Harvey's copy of Hodgson's book. In Designs far New Zealand Homes & Residences several house plans include inside toilets, including the only design in the book called a 'Week-end Bungalow'; Designs No. 54, model D, n.p. The latter has a central living room, which has direct external access to the verandah, around which the sleeping and service rooms are arranged. The living room therefore serves as the principal circulation space in the dwelling, although entry to the kitchen and bathroom is also possible via two doors at the rear of the house. Unfortunately Phillips does not provide an elevation drawing to show the reader the external treatment recommended for a bungalow of this nature. Phillips, Details and Specification, Plan L, n.p.

167

Phillips' plans are suggestive of the transition, from Edwardian villa to California bungalow, that occurred in N ew Zealand domestic architecture during the 1910s. Clearly a significant aid to this development were the numerous American bungalow plan books that proliferated in the early twentieth century.1 1 2 _{Books published by the Radford Architectural Company of Riverside,} Illinois, the John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Yoho and Merritt ('The Bungalow Craftsmen') of Seattle, Washington were available in New Zealand, along wi th periodicals such as The Creftsman (1901-16) and the Bungalow Magazine ( 1912-18).1 13 _{The houses} of Cambridge architect James Douce (see fig. 43) suggest that he was in possession of a copy of

Practical Bungalows

of

Southern California Built at Moderate Cost, which has already been discussed (see fig. 44).1 14

Photographs of interior and exterior views, 1n addition to the ubiquitous floor plans, were

reproduced in Practical Bungalows and Gustav Stickley's Craftsman magazine. The latter offered considerably more text than standard pattern or plan books and Stickley's publication was not exclusively devoted to the California bungalow, although this house style was most often the

1 1 2 _{Salmond, pp. 185-96.}

1 1 3 _{The Ra4ford American Homes: 100 House Plans, Industrial Publication Co., New York, 1903 [University of} Auckland library]; Ra4ford's Artistic Bungalows: Unique Collection

of

208 Designs: Best Modern Ideas in Bungalow Architecture, Radford Architectural Co., Chicago & New York, 1908 [University of Auckland & Canterbury libraries]; H.H. Saylor, Bungalows - Their Design, Construction and Furnishing, with Suggestions also for Camps, Summer Homes and Cottages

of

Similar Character, The John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, 1911 [Victoria University of Wellington library]; Colonial Homes -A Collection

of

the Latest Design, 2nd ed., Yoho & Merritt, Seattle, 1921 [University of Canterbury library]. Christchurch architect Richard Harman owned the 1913 edition of Gustav Stickley's Creftsman Homes: A Book far Home-Makers, Craftsman Publishing Company, New York; School of Fine Arts' Reference Room, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Jeremy Salmond has identified a house in Northcote, Auckland that it almost identical to one illustrated in a 1914 issue of the Bungalow Magazine; Salmond, p. 190.

1 1 4 _{In particular the house at the comer of Williams and Grosvenor Streets in Cambridge (c1914) may be compared} with Design No. 450 in Practical Bungalows. W.F. Gates, ed., Practical Bungalows

of

Southern California Built at Moderate Cost, Los Angeles Investment Company, Los Angeles, 1910, p. 14. Ashford, pp. 46-7. No. 68, Heritage Inventory, Waipa District Council, Cambridge. See Chapter Two.

vehicle for the promotion of his Arts and Crafts philosophy.1 1 5 _{Nevertheless The Creftsman was}

aimed at 'men and women of small incomes' whose ideal home was one 'in which their individuality might be truly expressed'.1 1 6 _{Although it featured the work of prominent architects,} including Pasadena's Greene and Greene and, on one occasion, Taranaki architect J.W. Chapman-Taylor, The Creftsman was directed towards the same popular, middle-class audience as contemporary bungalow plan books (see fig. 39) .1 1 7 _{Contributions to The Craftsman by female} home-owners and bungalow builders acknowledged a subset within this mass audience, one that had been served by American women's magazines such as Godey's Latfy's Book and the Ladies'

Home Journal since the mid-nineteenth century.1 1 8 _{New Zealand's Ladies' Mirror emulated these} magazmes when it offered 'Some Modern Ideas in Brick Bungalows' in its February 1923 issue.1 1 9

Besides architects and individual builders other parties also contributed to the available literature about house building in New Zealand before 1940. In c.1915 the Christchurch construction company, Paynter and Hamilton, offered a booklet titled Modern Homes in order to advertise their range of building services and provide advice on domestic planning, exterior finishes, and

1 1 5 _{A. Weissman, Craftsman Bungalows -59 Homes from} The _{Craftsman Edited l!J G. Stickl}

ey, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1988, Introduction p. vi. See also B. Sanders, A Complex Fate: Gustav Stickl_ey and the Craftsman Movement,

Preservation Press, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1996, pp. 67-84.

1 1 6 _{'Vacation Bungalows that Appeal Besides as Homes of Comfort and Refreshment' Qune 1 913), Crriftsman}

Bungalows, p. 90.

117 _{'A Mountain Bungalow Whose Appearance of Crude Construction is the Result of Skilful Design (December} 1 909) & 'A New Zealand Bungalow that Shows the True Craftsman's Art' Oune 1914), Crriftsman Bungalows, pp. 40-3, 1 16-20. See Chapter Five for a discussion of Chapman-Taylor's ambivalent attitude towards the California bungalow.

1 1 8 _God

f!Y's Latfy's Book published model house designs between 1 846 and 1 898. The Lidies' Home Journal is well known for featuring two desi_gns by Frank Lloyd Wright six years after it had started offering the same service to its readers. See G. Wright, Mora/ism and the Model Home -Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 18 7 3- 1913, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1 980, pp. 1 1 , 1 36-41. Also KT. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier - The Suburbanization of the United States, Oxford University Press, New York, 1 985, p. 1 86.

169

interior furnishings.1 20 _{The houses illustrated in the booklet, which had been desi}

gned and built by Paynter and Hamilton, conform to Arts and Crafts principles of siting and ornamentation and reveal a debt to the California bungalow in their planning. Hence the anonymous author's admonition that 'sliding doors or low archways, as wide as possible, between, say, dining and lounge room are an acquisition, and give an idea of spaciousness which is very attractive.'121

With regard to exterior finishes, Modern Homes mentions boulders, field stones, and shingles, thereby acknowledging the characteristic materials of the California bungalow which can be seen to such good effect in contemporary houses such as Christchurch's 'Los Angeles'.122

Offering a start-to-finish desi_gn and build service to 'bona fide prospective clients in any part of the country', Paynter and Hamilton were aware of the most recent trends in local domestic architecture and were in no way promoting reactionary styles out of step with contemporary architectural practice, a criticism that seems to have been frequently levelled at builders by architects.1 23 _{Furthermore, the list of clients supplied at the end of Modern Homes, by way of a}

testimonial of their work, indicates that the firm found a ready market for its services and its desi_gns of 'Country Homes, Cottages and Bungalows'.1 24

Another New Zealand building firm involved in the production of plan books for the local market, this time seeking to draw clients' attention to the use of a specific construction material,

was Bassett & Co. of Wanganui. This company built hundreds of 'Kosy Konka Homes' in the bungalow style which had been chosen from over 1 OOO patterns produced by Bassett & Co. in

120 _{Modem Homes, Paynter & Hamilton Ltd., Christchurch, c.1915.} 121 _{Ibid., p. 17.}

122 _{Ibid., pp. 17-19. See Chapter Two for a discussion of 'Los Angeles'.} 123 _{Ibid., p. 41. See Chapter Five.}

order to promote the company's concrete-sheet building system. Peter Shaw illustrates one such 'Kosy' home which stands in Ingestre Street, Wanganui.1 25 _{The entry to this house is framed by} an arched verandah supported by random rubble stone pylons which contrast with the white­ painted stuccoed surface texture of the house. A shed dormer set into the gabled roof, bracketed eaves, sunhoods over casement windows, and the predominant horizontal emphasis of the entire composition, signal the California bungalow origins of this desi_gn.

Individual plan book authors commonly occupied an intermediary zone between members of the building industry and the architectural profession. James Christie, a sawmiller turned 'Finance Agent, Estate Agent, [and] Company Promoter', and Richard Kibblewhite, who began his working life as a carpenter in Hamilton and later worked as a draughtsman in Auckland,

produced books of plans for the local market in the 191 Os and 1920s.1 26 _{Christie's New Zealand}

Homes of c.1914 illustrated 60 desi_gns in either bay villa or 'semi-bungalow' style. A Progress

reviewer described them as 'stereotyped and commonplace'.127 _{As was the case with Harry}

Ratcliffe's 30 Plans and Elevations

of

Selected Bungalows (1912), Christie's floor plans were additive

and compartmentalised.1 28 _{Ratcliffe did, however, seem to have a better overall grasp of the}

American principles of bungalow planning. In some of his desi_gns he dispensed entirely with the

central hall typical of villa desi_gn and the interconnection between living room and kitchen in

several plans suggests the more informal lifestyle of the bungalow owner (see fig. 56) . Even

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