Itinerary City Guide: Levin | Architecture Now

The jewel of the Horowhenua, a fertile band between the Tararua Ranges and the coast, was a string of shallow lakes that served as an considerable meals supply. The world round Lake Horowhenua was inhabited by Muaūpoko iwi, though their occupation was disrupted throughout the Musket Wars by a bloody battle with Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa led by Te Rauparaha, who would set up a base additional down the coast. The appearance of the rail line within the Eighteen Eighties — the city is known as after William Levin, a director of the Wellington and Manawatū Railway Firm — was essential to native improvement. Like a lot of the nation, the city was actually carved from the forest; the primary key enterprise was sawmilling and the second the tilling of the fertile soil that lay below the bushes. Because the land was cleared, the city developed as a service centre for agriculture and, later, horticulture within the surrounding space.

The post-war interval noticed a growth in gentle manufacturing, notably textile-related industries, which, in flip, collapsed within the financial deregulation of the Nineteen Eighties. Different later governmental strikes, such because the closure of Kimberley Hospital and the Horticultural Analysis Station, would additional dent the native economic system. Regardless of these ups and downs, what remained on a gentle downward arc was the lake, topic to abuses from which it is just now being allowed to recuperate.

Maybe surprisingly, a thousand-page world survey guide referred to as Up to date Architects, printed in 1987, included two buildings in Levin. However Levin is a reminder of the fragility of architectural achievement. Even on the peak of its financial vitality, the arrival of a noteworthy piece of public structure has occurred in Levin solely a couple of times a decade. This relative shortage is exacerbated by a driving however hit-and-miss pressure in small-town life: the will for ‘progress’. Most of the most noteworthy buildings produced throughout Levin’s historical past have since been demolished: the Carnegie library, a John Campbell-designed put up workplace, church buildings, a contemporary hospital and a number of other generations of municipal workplaces by main big-city companies.

Kiwis may see Levin as emblematic of small-town life but it surely’s not that small — it’s at present thirty first on the record of the nation’s largest city areas. That stated, there aren’t — or aren’t now — anynationally vital buildings on the town. It’s, although, knitted into our architectural historical past with buildings by and connections to necessary companies. It additionally demonstrates in microcosm a key change that has taken place throughout the final half century. The native establishments — notably church buildings, but additionally energy boards, neighborhood corridor committees and golf equipment — that traditionally commissioned architects to populate our cities with noteworthy public buildings have largely misplaced the capability to take action. Even quasi-local establishments like banks and put up workplaces have misplaced the inclination to construct. Besides within the case of some resort cities, structure appears tobe withdrawing from small cities. Cities are shedding the demographic or financial punch for community-level improvement, and battle to draw governmental or company entities with the wherewithal for constructing initiatives of any ambition.

Declaring deficits in our nationwide structure has lengthy been a favorite of commentators, from Samuel Hurst Seager’s 1900 grievance that our architectural artwork had seen “no true improvement” to The Group’s Invoice Wilson’s post-war declaration that “There is no such thing as a structure in New Zealand.” Over the house of a era, Levin has seen extra necessary buildings demolished than constructed however we’d like not declare time of demise. The quiescence of Levin and communities prefer it ought to, although, alert architects to the best way that their energies are being diverted from supporting communities. Architectural gems should stay one of many charms of small-town life.

THE ITINERARY

 1. 1905 – Financial institution of Australasia

28 Queen Avenue Crichton & McKay

Crichton & McKay was amongst probably the most energetic and profitable Wellington companies of its time, coaching plenty of vital architects, and beginning a lineage of practices that continued below varied names till very not too long ago — successor agency Bulleyment Fortune Architects accomplished the Police Station subsequent door on Salisbury Avenue in 1994. The agency produced homes and business buildings throughout the decrease North Island, together with branches for plenty of totally different banks, usually producing multiple financial institution in a city. Additionally they labored, for instance, on the Financial institution of New Zealand constructing nonetheless standing instantly throughout Queen Avenue.

2. 1922 – Thompson Home

4 Kent Avenue Clere & Williams

In a protracted and prolific profession, Frederick de Jersey Clere was energetic throughout the decrease North Island. He’s finest identified for his church buildings — his 1897 wood construction for St Mary’s in Levin was constructed only a stone’s throw from Thompson Home — however he produced business and civic buildings, in addition to homes. This home, constructed for native physician James Thompson and now Heritage New Zealand listed, was bought by the Levin Borough Council in 1973 to turn into a cultural and humanities centre to be used by the neighborhood. Clere’s St Mary’s, which had been outdated by a Prouse and Wilson constructing, was demolished in 1977.

3. 1936 – St John’s Methodist Church

90 Cambridge Avenue Prouse & Wilson

William Prouse was a key determine within the Wellington structure scene, practising for a time as Hoggard & Prouse in addition to having a stint practising with William Gummer earlier than the formation of Gummer and Ford. Prouse got here from a household of timber retailers. His uncles had been key figures within the institution of Levin, organising a timber mill that was a key engine within the space’s financial improvement and constructing the city’s first Methodist church. That wood construction was changed by this brick and stucco constructing. Enjoyable reality: in 1972, the church’s stained-glass window featured on the five-cent Christmas stamp.

4. 1940 – Horowhenua School Primary Constructing

65–73 Weraroa Street Bertie Kelly

Kelly was a prolific Wellington-based architect who, as architect to the Wellington Schooling Board, designed quite a few faculties and the heritage-listed former Schooling Board Constructing (1940) at 65 Abel Smith Avenue, Wellington. Kelly’s agency was joined within the late-Nineteen Forties by John Lindsay Mair (son of Authorities Architect John Thomas Mair) however, after the demise of his spouse within the Fifties, Kelly joined the Marist Brothers in Karori — simply in time to play a key position in commissioning John Scott to design the Futuna Chapel (1958). Heritage New Zealand Class 2-listed, the constructing is nicely preserved; the unlucky fence alongside the road is new.

5. 1956 – St Joseph’s Catholic Church

56 Weraroa Street James T. Craig & Associates

Like many Catholic church buildings, this complicated features a convent and a Catholic main faculty. From 1843, this parish was hooked up to the Māori mission in Ōtaki; a aspect chapel within the church that includes tukutuku panels and carvings is testomony to the congregation’s Māori roots. The church, the tower of which was not too long ago demolished due to seismic considerations, was designed by Decrease Hutt-based James T. Craig. He’s finest identified for initiatives contributing to the Fifties’ enlargement of Decrease Hutt, and for the Clock Tower in The Sq. in Palmerston North; his agency would finally turn into Craig Moller.

6. 1959 –Residence for Struggle Veterans

Prouse Avenue Dudley Roy, Architect

Roy had a peripatetic profession, working as in-house architect for the State Advances Company, serving as a discipline engineer within the Pacific and Europe throughout World Struggle II, main his personal agency and, finally, working in partnership with Ian Tulloch, designing conservative houses in varied types across the Wellington area. Described on its opening as “ultra-modern”, the Residence was designed to accommodate 104 veterans in a mixture of hospital ward and particular person bedrooms; it anticipates up to date relaxation houses. The constructing remains to be in comparatively unique situation: notably the eating room with its dramatic folded octagonal roof. See Structure NZ July 1963.

7. 1965 – Levin Public Library

10 Bathtub Avenue David Taylor, Architect

In 1911, Levin was recipient of one of many 18 New Zealand libraries funded by American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Standing on a outstanding avenue nook, it featured a flamboyant neoclassical design by prolific Wellington-based architect James Bennie. That was demolished and changed within the Sixties by Taylor’s crisp modernist quantity a couple of steps down Bathtub Steet. (Palmerston North-based Taylor is finest referred to as architect of the 1977 Manawatū Artwork Gallery.) In 2012, this library was, in flip, absorbed into Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-pō, an NZIA Award-winning neighborhood centre by Designgroup Stapleton Elliott that transformed the library and an adjoining vacant grocery store.

8. 1972 – Queen Avenue Gospel Chapel

541 Queen Avenue Rossano Fan

Sharp-eyed readers could have famous Michelle Wang’s current article about Rossano (Ming Ching) Fan (Structure NZ Nov/Dec 2024), who emigrated from Hong Kong to Levin within the early Sixties after marrying into an area market gardening household. He spent a while working for Palmerston North architect David Taylor (see itemizing 7), and even a couple of months within the New York workplace of modernist maestro Marcel Breuer. His personal work, largely homes between Wellington and the Horowhenua, caught the eye of figures akin to Sir Ian Athfield and Roger Walker however not, on the time at the very least, of our architectural media.

9. 1973 – Waiopehu School

74 Batholomew RoadMinistry of Works

This can be a well-built and largely intact instance of the usual s68 highschool: a sample utilized in greater than 50 new school campuses across the nation within the Nineteen Seventies. The design language was crisp: single-storey lecture rooms in brick or concrete block, linked with courtyards and lengthy corridors that flipped between inside and out of doors alongside their lengths. Construction was expressed, and pop-up clerestories offered wonderful pure gentle and air flow within the lecture rooms, however the complicated, low-pitched roofs and inner gutters tended to trigger ongoing issues. McKenzie Higham Architects’ NZIA Award-winning Horowhenua Teen Father or mother Unit (2015) is on the campus.

10. 1983 – New Regent Theatre

14-16 Salisbury Avenue Warren and Mahoney

Levin’s long-standing cinema was the charming Regent Theatre on Oxford Avenue, accomplished in 1926 by James Bennie. Seismically insufficient, it was demolished in 1984 (making room for Manz:Smith’s Regent Courtroom — see itemizing 12) and changed by this single-screen theatre. The constructing is a part of a sequence of Warren and Mahoney initiatives outlined by huge roofs and prismatic geometry that, regardless of many being of great measurement and a few successful awards, are largely absent from the agency’s canon, maybe in favour of the PoMo that adopted. Now referred to as Focal Level, the complicated was expanded to a few screens by Dennis Manz in 1996.

11. 1983 – Levin Submit Workplace

518 Queen Avenue East Ministry of Works and Growth

This outstanding nook was marked by a 1903 put up workplace by John Campbell (later given the title Authorities Architect), designed within the distinctive type his workplace employed in small cities throughout the nation. Campbell’s landmark was demolished within the Nineteen Eighties and the postal features have since been withdrawn, however the substitute constructing has nonetheless turn into a logo of the city. This position was strengthened when it served because the instantly recognisable backdrop in movies of the “Levin Automobile Invasion” of 2024, when 500 boy racers engaged in “anti-social highway person exercise”.

12. 1989 – MacDonnell Chapel 685 Queen Avenue East Manz:Smith Architects

This chapel is a part of the Horowhenua Masonic Village, designed by Wellington agency Structon Group and formally opened in 1978. The chapel resulted from a donation by a resident, the fee going to an area agency. Dennis Manz spent a number of years practising within the space, one of many few registered architects ever to be primarily based in Levin. Different notable works embrace the Levin Fuel Firm workplaces at 83 Oxford Avenue (ca. 1980) and the Council-commissioned Regent Courtroom mixed-use complicated at 173 Oxford Avenue (1985), and, within the late Nineteen Eighties, he offered the writer with a summer season job.

13. 2007 – Horowhenua District Council Constructing

126-148 Oxford Avenue Designgroup Elliott Architects

Wellington innovators Gabites, Alington & Edmondson made proposals for a civic centre however realised solely an annex to the Horowhenua County Council workplace (1976). This was demolished in 2007 to make method for a grocery store automobile park. This new constructing makes intelligent use of one in every of Levin’s few non-flat websites and is organised round a dramatic double-height lobby however, like that grocery store automobile park close by, units apart a defining crucial of essential avenue structure in small cities — construct as much as the lot line. Built-in artwork animates the construction and tells the story of key moments in native historical past.

14. 2010 – Levin District Courthouse

9 Bristol Avenue Tse Architects

This constructing changed a courthouse inbuilt 1903 (opened the identical day because the previous Submit Workplace and, seemingly, additionally designed by John Campbell), which has now been moved to the Rose Gardens on Cambridge Avenue. It gained an NZIA Western Structure Award in 2010 and the jury wrote of the constructing: “This up to date tackle a courthouse reveals an excellent use of supplies and colors all through… The dimensions and proportion of the constructing enhances each its operate and the speedy surroundings. A wonderful stability was achieved between performance and safety on this complicated Ministry of Justice mission.”

OTHER ADDRESSES

1902; 1927 – Former Financial institution of New Zealand 27 Queen Avenue East L.G. West & Son; Crichton McKay & Haughton

1909 – Railway Station34 Oxford Avenue NZ Railway Architectural Division below Sir George Troup

1956 – Levin & District Struggle Memorial Corridor 1A Chamberlain Avenue Grey Younger, Morton and Younger

1963 – St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church 87 Oxford Avenue Prouse & Wilson c.

1967 – Steelweb Upholstery 30 Coventry Avenue Adams & Dodd

1969 – Levin Mall191 Oxford Avenue Lewis Walker, Glossop and Co

1970 – Barraud & Abraham Warehouse1 Mako Mako Street J. Rex Roberts & Companions

1970 – Levin Dyeworks 15 Tiro Tiro Street Adams & Dodd

1990 – Levin Aquatic Centre Cnr Queen and Salisbury Streets Burwell Hunt Architects

SOURCES

Levin doesn’t a lot determine in our printed architectural histories. Raupo to Deco: Wellington Types and Architects 1840–1940 (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2014) by Geoff Mew and Adrian Humphris is stuffed with background on the Wellingtonbased companies, together with Crichton & McKay, Bertie Kelly and Frederick de Jersey Clere. Clere followers may search out Susan Mclean’s Architect of the Angels: The Church buildings of Frederick de Jersey Clere (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2003), and Warren and Mahoney followers ought to search for John Balasoglou’s New Territory: Warren and Mahoney (Auckland: Balasoglou Books, 2005). The Samuel Hurst Seagar quote is from ‘Architectural Artwork in Zealand’ from the Journal of the RIBA, 29 September 1900: 481–491. The Invoice Wilson quote is from ‘The Small Home’, Kiwi: The Annual Journal of the College students’ Affiliation of the Auckland College School, 43 (November 1948): 27–33. Each texts are accessible in Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’ New Dreamland: Writing New Zealand Structure (Auckland: Godwit, 2005). The worldwide survey talked about is Ann Lee Morgan’s Up to date Architects (Chicago: St James Press, 1987). Anthony Dreaver’s Levin: The Making of a City (Levin: Horowhenua District Council, 2006) is an in-depth native historical past which touches on structure at varied factors.

The Itinerary sequence is supported by Dulux Colors of New Zealand. Dulux Color Specialist Davina Harper has chosen a Colors of New Zealand palette primarily based on this itinerary. See the total vary and order color samples right here.