In 2019, the New Zealand Institute of Architects NZIA (Wellington branch) approached architectural photographer Andy Spain to ask if he had anything he’d like to show for that year’s Festival of Architecture. This prompted Spain to return to a project he’d long thought about creating — a long panorama of a street, later to become immortalised in photobook: Every Building on Cuba Street.

Cuba Street, arguably the cultural hub of Wellington, is recognised as a historic area under the Historic Places Act 1993. Wellingtonians, architecture, and history lovers alike will immediately understand the value of a volume that has captured every building along this iconic strip, especially as the region is traversed by seven fault lines that frequently cause tremors and threaten the integrity of its heritage buildings.

The inspiration, says Spain, came from his admiration of the work of Ed Ruscha who created Every Building on Sunset Strip in 1966 prompting him to wonder if he could do something similar in Wellington. Wary of the region’s seismic activity, Spain had been working on a project called ‘On Shaky Ground’ documenting some of Wellington’s earthquake-prone buildings. Says Spain “I was conscious of producing something which was a permanent record of a space I loved and that was in contrast to Google Street View and other such ephemeral digital media. This ended up being a lightbox series, made up of around 155 pictures of each side of Cuba Street.”

With an initial intention to have the images blend seamlessly together, Spain decided he preferred “the more haptic approach” of the images being placed one after the other with a small gap and following the roof line (which results in each shot moving up and down). In effect, this gives a marked visual rhythm to the shots that mimic the jaunty movements of a pedestrian walking the street.

The task of capturing 900 metres of buildings was no easy one. Spain says “I worked out from trial and error that I needed to take a photograph about every 10 steps (to get an overlap of every building), but I went for more or less steps depending on the cars, trees, and lampposts etc.” One side of the street was taken at dusk, the other during the day and according to Spain it took a couple of hours to photograph each side.

In 2024, with the lightbox stills sitting in his office, Spain decided to reinvestigate the project and make it into something more manageable. Five years on, Spain’s photographs of Cuba Street taken in 2019 have been made into a photobook that concertinas (folds) out into a panorama. The book was designed by JJ du Plessis and printed and folded by Colourcraft Wellington with cover pages and slipcover made by bookbinders on Cuba Street. Spain says the book “has a lovely feel to it with the pages folded by hand taking many hours.”

The forward on the inside front cover of the book reads:

“When Ed Ruscha took his panorama of the sunset strip in the 1960s, the penetration of imagery into every corner of our lives was an event decades away in the future. Now a few clicks on Google unravels the visual tapestry of our local streets, weaving a digital narrative that spans every town and country. The subtle dance between information and control shifts us from individuals to customers, placing all humanity into folds of vast algorithms.

Cuba Street in Pōneke/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand is a street that represents this changing urban environment, resisting the onslaught of generic international retail chains and serving as a colonial relic of an architecture of the 1800 and 1900s, at the whim of the next big seismic event.

Wanting to fight back against the ephemeral, Andy wanted to create something that serves as a document and a testament, an art piece that pays homage to Ed Ruscha and an ode to an urban environment and architecture rapidly vanishing. This book unfolds as a journey through time and space, where each page turn not only reveals the layers of Cuba Street but also explores, as do all photographs, the interplay between preservation and progress, permanence and change.”

Every Building on Cuba Street will be available to view and purchase at Photobook/NZ a photobook fair at Wellington’s Te Papa Museum from 8–11 August 2024. It is an edition of 10 with each copy including a printed portrait from Spain’s Cuba People series. The purchase price is $750 including GST. As a limited edition, custom concertina book, the price reflects the value of the book as a piece of art, as well as the expert knowledge and skill in its production.

Follow Andy Spain at andyspain_photography and view previous work at www.asvisual.nz.