Published, in short, in the new issue of Architecture New Zealand (Issue 03/12), below is Scott Menzies’ full response to the architect-designed projects being built or under development in Christchurch (click here to view original article):

That bloke Adolf from Austria has a lot to answer for. “Ornamentation is a crime,” Adolf Loos ranted. Come on. He is kidding, right? Trying to nail what it is about the designs coming off the boards for the Christchurch rebuild sets my teeth on edge, and those of nearly every non-architect I know. It has boiled down to three things. First, it is the lack of ornamentation; second, the almost pathological avoidance of curves, natural shapes and alternative roof types; and third, the lassitude being shown towards the treatment of corner sites and street edges.

Neomodernism is the predominant movement in the city’s architectural rise from the rubble. Like with its modernist predecessor, there are things to admire: its expanses of glass, light-filled spaces and egalitarian openness speak to Canterbury’s new worldism, new opportunities, land of the big plains, big sky and big dreams. So why is it, when I showed a slideshow of rebuild designs by Christchurch architects to my friends and family, that it met gasps of disappointment and derisive comments? Why have readers of The Press labelled the designs, ‘boring’, ‘dull’, ‘ugly’, ‘monstrosities’ and ‘horrid’?

If you answered: “the fault is not with the designs but in our non-professional ‘uneducated’ eyes”, then let me take you aside for a moment. Please don’t do that. As a contributor to The New York Times wrote in a debate over brutalist buildings, “Rossini once said of Wagner’s music that it is better than it sounds; the architectural panjandrums try to persuade us that brutalism [or neomodernism] is better than it looks. But buildings cannot be better than they look, for architecture is a public art that imposes itself on its surroundings.”

It is not a case of being uneducated; you can explain away your design as much as you like, but our antipathy remains. It is almost visceral. It is born out of the fact that neomodernism, like modernism, is a product of the machine age. That is why one of the most common responses to these designs is they are ‘soulless’ or ‘cold’. You can boast about eco-tech in your design and how ’quake-proof it is but greenwashing and safewashing won’t cover up the fact neomodernism perpetuates the machine age aesthetic. It often treats humans as though we are machines which have no need of the beauty, character and, yes, soul provided by ornamentation and the forms and materials of the pre-modernist and postmodernist pattern books.

We are seeing steel fins, coloured Perspex and modules for Africa, but ornamentation? There is nary a frieze, pendant or pilaster to be found. Not even a cornice. Louis Sullivan said ‘form ever follows function’. Even he, however, eschewed a dogmatic approach to this principle, festooning his buildings with art nouveau and Celtic-derived decorations, ranging from organic forms to more geometric designs. Machines can operate without beauty. The people of Christchurch will lead poorer lives if our architects starve us of it.

One of the most striking commonalities of the designs is their sameness of form. The horizontal and vertical dominate over and over and over again. “Box, box and more box” as one reader of The Press reader commented, or as another put it, “surely they teach shapes to architects other than the cube?” Flat roofs seem to be the only type known. Architects of Christchurch! Enough already with the straight lines and flat roofs!

Let me be clear: I am not advocating a wholesale return to the architectural movements of the past, or to the neotraditional design of the new urbanist movement. I am advocating simple modifications to designs already publicised, and ideas for those yet to come. I’ve run these past others. They agree, they correct the blandness, the coldness, the soullessness of what we’re seeing so far. Let’s run through them.

Ornamentation is the architectural equivalent of the pearl necklace that sets off the little black dress, or the pocket handkerchief that completes the Savile Row suit. Pre-cast columns, like those of Warren and Mahoney’s Rural Bank design for Cathedral Square, for example, would benefit from fluted pilasters and cantons to add richness to the play of light and shade. The bank’s roof line leaves the building incomplete, as if it might rip open and the contents float away. A cornice and corbels, or a frieze, would fix that and give the building the gravitas that it and many neomodern designs lack. A pattern echoing that of the old cathedral’s roof would add visual delight to the exposed lift and stair shaft. The design for 83 Victoria Street by +MAP Architects neighbours a green space. A stainless-steel sunshade perforated in a floral pattern, perhaps in an orange or red hue, would provide a respectful, playful and soul-pleasing nod to the building’s position. The steel fins of 112 Cashel Street and 76 Victoria Street, indeed metal exteriors and louvres across the city, could be pressed with intricate patterns, echoing the magnificent tin ceilings of our colonial forebears. There is a rich inventory of decoration: parapets, pediments, quoins, corbels, filigree, flutes, friezes, festoons and finials. The possibilities are immense. They would add the priceless and much-wanted values of character, beauty and soul.

Dust off your French curve or learn how to activate the ‘curve’ function in your CAD program. Whether your design is meant to echo a 19th-century predecessor or not, every non-architect I’ve asked has agreed the designs should include more shapes derived from nature. We want arches of all kinds above windows, bays and main entrances. Sheppard & Rout’s design for the former Whitcoulls and Press site in Cashel St, for example, could employ pointed arches over balconies and bays reminiscent of the Press building’s windows. Use Gothic arches on loggia. Add a roll to your verandah, curved brackets beneath balconies and round corners extending the full height of your building. Look at the soaring interlinked wood columns of Shigeru Ban’s Nine Bridges and imagine them inside a new Christchurch covered market, transport exchange or library: visible from the outside, or outside gracing the front of a Cathedral Square or Avon riverside building. Maybe your building? Curves dispel the cold and off-putting effect that a total reliance on horizontal and vertical lines has on people.

Roof-wise, the City Council’s guidelines say, “rooflines should… provide visual interest in a way that complements the broader central city skyline”. The surfeit of flat roofs in designs to date does not provide visual interest. The skyline should punctuate the Canterbury plains, not emulate them. We want some gable, gambrel, hip and mansard roofs. When it comes to corner sites, Thom Craig’s design for Colombo and Kilmore is a positive example. Its sunshade swoops to a pinnacle on the corner, providing the aesthetic satisfaction (needed) when a corner is taller than its neighbours, while the perforated boardroom module respects the need for a grand façade treatment. On the other hand, +MAP Architects’ design for Bealey and Victoria would better serve its gateway position with the addition of a tower or pediment on the corner, bringing the roof line to at least the height of its neighbour and an oriel window wrapped around the corner to add an imposing embellishment and a delighter for tenants and passers-by.

Make street edges as interactive as you can, with prominent doors, ledges for sitting, awnings, verandahs, public art and good views of the interior. While you’re at it, be daring and revive the street-edge elegance of verandah posts.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, a leading American architectural critic, said the greatest buildings, “tug at our heart-strings. We seek them out… both to get our bearings and to anchor ourselves psychologically in the life of the city.” Architects of Christchurch, as you perform your alchemy of art, engineering and science, as you seek to balance the desires of the client, the Council and the people of the city, you must ask yourselves whether your designs will tug at heart-strings, whether people will seek them out because they delight the eye and the soul. If you employ ornamentation, natural shapes and varied rooflines, make corners grand and street edges interactive, whilst retaining your neomodernist base, you will be able to answer these questions in the affirmative and Christchurch truly will be a city of architecture to cherish.