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

October 24th, 2016

24/10/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Warren and Mahoney were to become the best known, and arguably the most popular, architects of the 1960s and 70s. Yet their most influential building was one of their first; the little single-person flats set in a row in Dorset Street, Christchurch, in 1959 gave substance to a vision of the town-house that was to capture the imagination of New Zealand architects and clients alike.

The underlying model for these flats was the English terrace house, but because the flats were very small, one was placed above the another so that each pair overlooked a courtyard. Stairs between groups of flats gave access to those on the upper level. The architects here declined to use a continuous balcony to give access to the upper flats, and thereby avoided the squalid connotations of the “sausage flats” that were being built at the time in city suburbs elsewhere. Warren and Mahoney have often used this method of access to the upper floors of all sorts of buildings, avoiding corridors and continuous balconies at all costs. The technique can be seen in Christchurch College, at the University Student Union building in Auckland, and at Christ’s College.

At Dorset Street the architects were blessed with a site that was shallow and wide, ideally suited to a row-house development, but it was not until 1963 that they got the chance to show what could be done on a large deep site with a relatively narrow frontage. These “flats”, as they were still called, were built for Mrs Broderick in Merivale, and these were truly what we now know as town-houses. At that time many commentators were still asserting that New Zealanders would not live in flats, but within a few years planning ordinances around the country were adjusted to allow the kinds of buildings that Warren and Mahoney had demonstrated could be pleasant, private and popular.


DAVID MITCHELL and GILLIAN CHAPLIN, “The Elegant Shed: New Zealand Architecture Since 1945”, Oxford University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-19-558125-3, pp 52-54.

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.