Professor emeritus at the University of Auckland and distinguished New Zealand architect Allan Wild passed away on 11 February 2019.

Wild graduated from Auckland University College with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1951. He went on to be a founding member of the Architectural Group, also known as Group Architects. The Group was one of the most influential practices in the mid-twentieth century, pushing for the country to form it’s own architectural identity and create homes to be well designed and “in which leisure and beauty are not interred in respectable museums,” according to the firm’s manifesto.

After returning to his native Wellington in 1952, Wild partnered with Anthony Treadwell to form the architectural practice Treadwell and Wild, which was responsible for the design of one of the county’s first medium-density apartment buildings, Hazel Court, among other bastions of modernist New Zealand architecture. Wild then served as the dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Auckland from 1969 until his retirement in 1993. 

Wild was a Fellow of both the New Zealand Institute of Architects and the Royal Society of Arts. He was a beloved father, grandfather and great-grandfather. A full tribute will follow in the May/June issue of Architecture New Zealand magazine.