Roger Walker

I had financed my way through university by the good grace of the Horotiu Freezing Works in the Waikato, and having met a young law student who was doing the same thing, was asked to design my first house for him, in Highbury, the furthermost extremity of the Wellington suburb of Kelburn. One night after work, I visited what was after all the moonlight job. There were two shadowy silhouettes standing together on the uppermost platform of the partially-framed structure. One of the silhouettes was animated, the other less so. The animated one introduced himself as Ian Athfield; the other one was his client.

That is how we met. Ath had told the client that there was another nutter architect in town and felt his client would be reassured by this duality.

About this time one of the senior [Structon] partners had designed the new Victoria University Student Union building prior to the arrival of a new vice chancellor. When the vice chancellor told the media that ‘the building wasn’t fit for pigs to live in’ the senior partner sued for defamation. On the courthouse steps the vice chancellor announced a reversal of his position, subject to the aggrieved architect’s withdrawal of his suit. His reversed position was that ‘the building was fit for pigs to live in’.

This level of job satisfaction didn’t appeal to Ath and he quite rightly abandoned Structon, taking off to his new house on the hill. I was going to say the newly completed house, but of course as a continuous work in progress, it will never be completed. Ath’s house is his doodling, but with blocks and concrete rather than a ballpoint.

I don’t see a huge amount of Ath, but he is a monumental presence and on the occasions when our paths cross, there is great camaraderie and telling of jokes. The urban legends surrounding the construction of his house — the council, the lack of two doors between the kitchen and the downstairs wc, the neighbours’ reactions, the running of a bulldozer across Merlin Muir’s vegetable patch (the contractor mistakenly thought that Ath owned all the houses in Onslow Rd below), Bentley the goat on the loose, butting his reflection in a neighbour’s television set — all these need to be the subject of a book.

I had the privilege of travelling with Ath, John Blair and Rewi Thompson, on a lecture tour of the USA in 1986. I got to know him best during that time — his vision, imagination and passion. His work has remained consistently enriched in care, progressing from raw to refined over nearly four decades but without losing any direction. The man is a fountain of ideas; he has had a measure of luck with his wife Clare, and his enthusiastic and loyal staff.

I visited Ath in hospital three years ago, after gravity had stuck the deformed steel reo bar deep into his abdomen. The unthinkable mortality of the man was exposed. I would like to think that he will live forever; in a way, he will.

Ross Brown

Being around Ath can be dangerous. I remember the time when he decided, prior to our departure for a fishing weekend, to take me to A&E because of a physical ailment I’d been experiencing. At least four of the subsequent 24 hours it took to diagnose the bump on my head were spent convincing nurses and doctors that Ath was not the real patient. He had fallen down two or three floors of blockwork and reinforcing cages the night before, and while my injuries had no outward manifestations, his were writ large. Lacerations, blood and hanging segments of skin proliferated over his beaten-up frame — the a very visible results of a loss of balance on the oft-encountered precarious ledges at Amritsar Street.

So it wasn’t a complete surprise to those who know Ath well to hear, around 15 years later, that he had done it again! (Of course, there had been many minor and major gashes and grazes in the intervening years.) This time, after traversing the full 2-3 storeys downwards, he was impaled on one of the upstanding reinforcing bars. The fact that it missed a vital organ — all organs — by millimetres is the only reason we have him with us still. This time, his injuries had to be taken seriously and took a lot longer to repair.

It’s all part of it what Ath calls “living (or being) on the edge”. The edge of anything, or everything, really. The Amritsar Street house started with a small 2-storey rectangular concrete box in 1967 (the year I started work with Ath as it happened) — a modest beginning to the “takeover” of the whole suburb of Khandallah he ultimately had in mind. The precipitous border along the vertical cliffs abutting Lambton Harbour was an unlikely place to start his mission but working in from this (steep) edge was exactly the way to take over by stealth. Now that the same house encompasses the greater part of the surrounding suburb, neighbours and nearby residents can only marvel at the way in which this transformation and assimilation has been accomplished.

Ath likes to position all his buildings at the edge — of something! In many cases, at the edge of a theoretical position which, although he can always articulate clearly, he rarely if ever writes about. He prefers the built works to speak for themselves, as they push the boundaries (of structure, enclosure, openness, weatherproofness, fabric or skin technology, etc.) past, and often over, the edge of what others would consider prudent.

This pushing against boundaries distinguishes Ath’s work. Over the years the impulse has led him through many different design ethoses and shifting aesthetics. It has never allowed his buildings — or his builders — to rest too comfortably within any genre within which he may have found temporary repose.

Wellington’s Civic Square is an urban example of design-at-the-edge at its best. The open area seems to expand into a space of sublimely harmonious proportions because of Ath’s careful positioning and scaling of the new and existing buildings around its edge. One of those buildings, the City Library, encloses and forms a vital cornerstone at an all-important edge to the square; it is one of Ath’s truly great public buildings. Wellington benefits from it every day. The open space achieves something even more miraculous: although on paper it appears to be cut off from Wellington’s waterfront, it cleverly extends over the busy Jervois Quay vehicular artery. Ath’s influence on the edge of Wellington’s waterfront has continued to expand; each new commission further cements the relationship between the city and its water edge.

Anybody living as close to the edge as Ath (and I haven’t even touched on the relationship he has conducted with local Council/Territorial Authority personnel over the years) needs somebody close as a countervailing or balancing influence. Ath has had that with Clare Cookson, whom he married in 1962. Clare’s enormous influence on everything that Ath has done must be recognised. A huge talent as well, she has been there to assist Ath and keep him (just) on the tightrope on which he is learning, progressively, to better balance.

I wish Ath, Clare and Athfield Architects a further lengthy tenure on their prominent perch at the “leading edge” of contem-porary architecture in New Zealand.

Marshall Cook

Ian Athfield discovered very early in his career that Architecture was an extremely powerful medium. His student work contained a rogue inner sense that jousted with the refined world of rational architecture. His designs were a magpie’s nest of baubles garnered from a world that others could not see. His projects built upon the rituals of existence and the delight of everyday activities. Whilst other students struggled to order and align their buildings, Athfield worked the rich fields of abstract or curvilinear forms that irreverently challenged the governing norms of the day.

He played rugby a bit, with some ability, worked exhaustive hours, immersed himself in student life, got the girl, passed through the system and immediately went to work without pausing for a review. His lasting impact upon his fellow students was such that most of us have been following his career ever since.

Athfield’s early post-graduate work was with some of Wellington’s oldest established firms that were nesting on Death Row. His bold and innovative design work brought a couple of them back from the abyss, much to his disadvantage. Having survived Ron Mustoe at Structon and the general cluck-clucking of the old guard, Athfield went into private practice just as Sir Michael Fowler started pulling the old city down. Reverting to his magpie instincts, he produced a new series of architectural baubles, mined from this destruction.

Houses and buildings from once-used materials provided a strong and visually rich argument about the value of buildings in the continuum of history and the culture of needless waste. The next phase of this work resonated again with that inner sense that underpinned his student work. Mockingly simple, yet celebrating the complexity of life and beliefs, designs like the First Church of Christ Scientist, the Neill House, and the Custance House put his work firmly on the world’s stage.

Regardless of his penchant for eternally rediscovering the child within, Ian is an architect who has never had an immature period of design. He has constantly manipulated the power of Architecture to shape a response that society as a whole cannot resist.

And neither can the profession.

Gordon Moller

Ath is known for his entertaining, flamboyant and humorous interaction with other people — which has been particularly to the fore in his many architectural projects, events, presentations, and expositions.

However, there is another side to him (related of course): the way he relates to people. His great strength is not only his intuitive and intellectual approach to architecture, but his ability to connect.

Sylvia and I travelled with Clare and Ath on a number of occasions — one memorable trip was to Milan and thence to Venice and via ferry to Yugoslavia to travel down the Adriatic Coast … We wandered the coast, staying in pensions along the way, and Ath became our great connector, befriending any and everybody.

We drank wine and ate large sardines in a cellar crammed with enthusiastic Dalmatians who sang the most amazing folk songs. As we rolled back to our beds, drifters along the way became instant firm friends. We joined a choral group in Split’s amazing old town, then there was a picnic on Brac, with more singing and quaffing of wine. We wouldn’t have done all this without this interaction with the locals — orchestrated by Ath and ably abetted by Clare, with us as an enthusiastic chorus.

Yet through all this merriment, the overriding characteristic of the man was the ability to be humble, and therefore to connect with ordinary people of all persuasions. This has further manifested itself in his care and compassion with his own parents. I recall a wonderful lunch at our Te Horo Beach House when Ath and Clare and his parents joined us to muse on things which we all hold dear — the relationships that we establish, maintain and nurture.

Peter Wood

It is often the case that the principle architectural reference for a city can be shaped by a dominant architect. Dunedin has Ted McCoy; Christchurch, Miles Warren; Auckland, William Gummer; and Wellington has Ath. Or perhaps that should read Ath has Wellington. His own house presides expansively over Wellington Harbour like an ongoing autobiography of architectural endeavour, and it serves to remind the Capital that buildings can, and do, matter.

In this sense the Athfield house is a cultural beacon, although it looks more like a shipwreck, and therein lies the essence of Athfield buildings. Whether you see his work as eclectic, confused, conflicted, or disparate, these are all aspects of an aggressive experimentation that has defined his formal expression. Even the most ardent supporters of Te Papa must have moments of doubt when they reflect on what might have happened if Athfield and Gehry had won the competition for a National Museum.

But of all his contributions to the city, the Wellington Public Library is my favourite. I like the medieval massing of this building as it defends and defines the Civic Square behind. Or perhaps that should be in front — I cannot be entirely sure as there is no dominant facade but a collection of facade components that appear to reflect rather than resolve the problem of public faces for public buildings.

I like the elegant nikau caryatids that transform a European language of building into one more suited to a South Pacific context, and I like the squatness and weight of the post-modern colonnade that is as heavy on one side as the nikaus are light on the other. I also like the chain mail curtains that close the library without locking the building down.

I still do not quite understand the polluted cottonwool clouds that surround the ceiling services, but I like them, along with the faux steel hull detail, and the brass book returns box that demands that someone labour like an 18th Century domestic to maintain the shine. But most of all I like the way this building celebrates the people that use it. Whether you are passing through or passing time, using the library, getting coffee, or changing nappies, expansive provision for variety in the design of the circulation incorporates all these things into a unified occupancy of engagement. This is less a building than a structured social system. I often go well out of my way to take a shortcut through this world. Only one architect in Wellington can make me do that.

Patrick Clifford

Ath’s work has a vivid presence in my memories of growing up in Wellington. Especially the house; we used to make the daily journey up and down Onslow Road and the house seemed so thoroughly Wellington. (The other memorable journey was through the Hataitai tunnel and past Roger Walker’s flats). I can remember, too, as a student walking down Willis St past the Church of Christ Scientist on the way to the St George’s pool room.

Later, of course, like everybody in Wellington, I would follow Ath’s battles with the regulators over his house. Later still, I got the chance to work with him, on Jade Stadium in Christchurch. We developed a relationship in the car travelling from the airport to the make-or-break meeting with the clients. The presentation, needless to say, involved a virtuoso Ath performance, a design proposal leavened with well-pitched jokes, allusions, and anecdotes.

Until Jade, I didn’t fully realise how Ath and his practice had achieved so much. Athfield Architects has a strong record of developing innovative solutions for complex problems — they had done some amazing things. Obviously, this didn’t just happen, and I quickly came to appreciate the practice’s deep commitment to every level of a project. Because Ath’s work is so formally engaging, the sheer technical competence of the practice is easy to overlook.

It’s almost impossible not see in Ath’s career a progress from poacher to gamekeeper. Perhaps there’s a message there about how much our community has changed over the past 30 years. Not so long ago, architecture was something people treated with suspicion; now, they desperately want it to be good. In no small measure, this evolution is due to Ath’s influence. His work has changed our perceptions of buildings and cities; it has allowed us to rethink a whole lot of typologies. For example, another Wellington project, the Greta Point tavern, profoundly affected the way we came to view older buildings (and pubs, for that matter).

Ath’s work blends craft and humanity. He is hugely personable while being a great practitioner; he’s very humorous, and also incredibly reliable. His enthusiasm affects people. You can’t help but be excited by what he talks about, what he does, and who he is.

Ashley Cox

When all the laughter has died down, anyone who knows Ath knows his ‘individual’ sense of humour and performance.

Humour is an ironic trait — it can both conceal and reveal. As performance, architecture is one of the most physically manifest events possible. Ath’s architecture and antics can be seen as being linked by a sense of the theatrical — a kind of cross between Louis Kahn and Groucho Marx. In his office, porthole windows in the Titanic Tearooms can be read as metaphor for the slightly risque joke about a leering old man. The spiral stairs to the tower; the late-night tabletop pirouette in the trademark schoolboy attire complete with knee-high walk socks (witnessed at the last NZIA Conference); the recurring dual chimney motif (the two finger gesture to the establishment of the time); the Church of Christ Scientist — all evince the inquiring nature of a mind that never ceases asking.

Read into the architectural and personal performances what you will, Ath’ll always keep you guessing, and then, just like in a David Lynch movie, you’ll be thwarted by something you missed — but then, did it ever really happen?

Ath will answer a question with a question, turn it into a riddle that undergoes a massive sideways displacement, evade seriousness, provide an anecdotal recollection from a past escapade (extensive bibliography available). He’ll floor you and the entire client meeting of a dozen savvy suits with one paperless gestural sketch that is left to hang in the air. It will convert even the most conceptually, visually and spatially impaired into Piranesian putty in his hands, sending them reaching for their fee agreements with one hand and the nearest pen with the other. Of course, of none of this did you have the faintest advance warning — yet the improvisation is choreographed, produced and starred in by the very same consummate performer whose approach defies any recognisable convention, entreating all, as Blerta put it, to “come dance all around the world”.

For Ath, life pretty much centres solely around architecture, not of course in the populist sense of “drawing up houses”, but Architecture as a highly personalised overarching philosophical operating system for life. It must be; there’s no time for anything else. Of course, this being true, one man couldn’t do it all on his own. Also implicated are the generations of supporting cast and crew in the hillside theatre (and scattered beyond), too numerous to mention, who keep his show rolling.

Out of some crazy, inexplicable and uncannily consistent ‘hive’ motivation, all are magnetised by the same thing the clients are — being allowed to ‘be’. Bouncing around inside the walls that this framework provides is the creator, free to work doing what he does best: producing the ‘big picture’.

Peter Stutchbury

Whilst still at university in the ’70’s I casually picked up an issue of Architecture Australia, to discover the work of two New Zealand architects, Roger Walker and Ian Athfield. I was mesmerised; the works appeared as if in a dream, in an instant New Zealand became, to me, a land of mystery and architectural intrigue.

Twenty-five years later I was invited to New Zealand to participate on the NZIA’s National jury. I spotted the name of Athfield on the jury list and was drawn to participate with my Tasman colleagues. This event was for me a privilege. I learnt immediately the extent of respect and friendship that surrounded Ian. Here was a man of open manner, deliberate opinion and obvious talent. He ignited conversation and promoted debate, often expressing an insight beyond architectural terms. In any field of endeavour it is a privilege to experience a person of endless and intelligent energy.

Toward the end of our time together the jury were guests of Ian and Clare at their home. I disappeared after dinner to ‘discover’ the architecture. My dreams of the ’70’s were awakened; what I found was unrelenting investigation, not dissimilar to the character of Wright’s home in Oak Park. Here was a building of architectural evolution, a palate of thinking. Few build with such courage.

Other Athfield projects were discovered, on a variety of scales, all with the trademark spirit of freedom that typifies Ian’s character and work. The mighty Jade Stadium displayed an architectural directness only possible after extensive practice and time.

I applaud this Gold Medal. Ian is a true ambassador of inspiration, through both his own particular independence, and the tenor of his work.

For an interview with Sir Ian following his Gold Medal win, click here.