Dorset Street Flats
  • Read
    • 03 Magazine
    • Architectural Conservation
    • The Architectural Review
    • Architecture 1820-1970
    • Architecture New Zealand
    • Atlas Of World Art
    • An Autobiography
    • At Home
    • Block Itinerary
    • Bulletin
    • Business South
    • Changing Times
    • Concrete
    • The Dictionary Of Art
    • The Elegant Shed
    • Here
    • Heritage New Zealand
    • A History Of NZ Architecture
    • Home And Building
    • Home New Zealand
    • Last Loneliest Loveliest
    • Long Live The Modern
    • Looking For The Local
    • The Modernist World
    • Neo-Avant-Garde and Postmodern
    • New Dreamland
    • New Territory
    • New Zealand Architect
    • New Zealand Architecture
    • NZ House & Garden
    • Ohinetahi
    • Otautahi Christchurch Architecture
    • Practical Guide To Home Landscaping
    • Rolleston Avenue and Park Terrace
    • Selected Architecture
    • Shifting Foundations
    • The Press
    • Warren & Mahoney Architects
  • Look
    • The Original Drawings
  • Watch
    • The New Zealand Home (2016)
    • Brutal Beauty (2011)
    • New Zealand At Home (2006)
    • The Elegant Shed (1984)
  • Rebuild
  • Blog
  • Contact

August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Christchurch architect Don Donnithorne dies aged 90.

Don Donnithorne never stopped being an architect. He didn't want to.
"Everyone used to say to him: 'When are you retiring?'" son Martin Donnithorne said.
"He would look on in disgust and say ‘never'."
So it was, then, that he never officially retired from his eponymous Christchurch practice, although poor health following a stroke in 2013 forced him from the business in all but name.

Donnithorne died at Parklands Hospital on Friday, five days after his 90th birthday.

Along with contemporaries Sir Miles Warren and the late Peter Beaven, he was part of a new school of architects who dominated Christchurch's post-war cityscape with clean, modernist designs.

A devout Anglican, church work was a specialty, including a reordering of Christ Church Cathedral in the 1980s. He raised eyebrows with his unconventional design to repair the earthquake damaged building in 2012.
Major secular accomplishments included the Wigram Air Force Museum, the Netball Centre in Hagley Park and the old Millbrook Apartments on Carlton Mill Rd.

His own home in Upper Riccarton, which he designed while a student in the 1950s, became perhaps his best-known work. It had a marked Scandinavian influence and was the only home he and his wife Dawn ever lived in. They had five children.
"Very straightforward simple form, predominant roof, no eaves," Warren said.
"Dismissed as a mere shed, but in architectural terms very influential. He proceeded to design numbers of houses which became more complex and elaborate . . . I think he will be best known for his domestic work."
That work was characterised by similarly crisp forms and a preference for natural materials – much like his hero, Frank Lloyd Wright.
"Frank Lloyd Wright meant a lot to Dad," Martin Donnithorne said.
"He went to the [United] States quite a few times for tours of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings. He was a great expert on Frank Lloyd Wright, he could tell you anything about him."

Martin Donnithorne, who has taken over his father's business, said his dad saw a kindred spirit in the unorthodox American architect.
"Frank Lloyd Wright, as we all know, was quite eccentric and Dad was quite eccentric too.
"[He had a] mad love of cars. Dad had a collection of Lancia cars which was quite extraordinary. He had about a dozen of them at one stage. People used to think he was a nut. Why in the hell do you collect those cars? They don't go, they break down all the time.

"It was just that love of good design and beauty and something that was not the norm."
Don Donnithorne's atypical taste extended into his wardrobe, where he could call on the services of his brother, a tailor.
"He had all his suits all tailored, as many of us did," friend Maurice Mahoney said.
"But Don would not just have an ordinary grey suit by any means. He'd have some bright pattern or pale colour. Quite different from anyone else."

Mahoney, who famously went on to partner with Warren, was a couple of years behind Donnithorne in what became known as the "Christchurch Atelier" – a group of architecture students who studied by correspondence to avoid relocating to Auckland to attend the country's only school.
"He was very friendly and a bit of a mentor to me, being a couple of years ahead," Mahoney said.
"He also had great imagination and was able to put that to great use. He stood out amongst the group of architectural students in those days. As, of course, did Miles. I was more of the putting together man, not actually an instinctive designer, but Don certainly was."
That instinct had a habit of pre-empting the design phase of a project if Donnithorne saw a disused building with potential. The Library Chambers building, on the corner of Hereford St and Cambridge Tce, was one such salvage job.

"That was Dad just going in and working out a scheme," Martin Donnithorne said.
"He'd see jobs round town. He'd draw something up and take it to them and say, 'This is what you could do'. Now and again some people would embrace it. Other people would basically tell him to p… off."
Don Donnithorne didn't mind. He had an innate sense of fairness, his son said. He treated everyone on a building site as an equal, but never suffered fools and never erred from speaking his mind.
"A lot of architects won't because they're frightened that if they voice their opinion they're going to lose work out of it. Dad did not worry about that at all. He would say exactly what he thought."

On his 90th birthday last Sunday, Donnithorne, incapacitated by his stroke, said very little, but enough to voice approval of a gift from his friend. Mahoney had found a picture of Donnithorne in an old edition of Architecture New Zealand magazine and had it framed.
"He certainly enjoyed it," Mahoney said.
The picture showed Donnithorne posing with three of his Lancias. He was standing in the driveway of his Upper Riccarton home, with his Taliesin  visible in the background. Always the architect.

Picture
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Keep up to date by joining our Facebook page. Click on the icon above.

    Archives

    December 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2015-2025 dorsetstreetflats.com.  All permissions sought wherever possible.