WHIMSICAL MUSIC Two men from wildly different worlds join forces to explore the NZ home on a road trip in a 1960s Mark 2 Jag. 5.35 here on The Source. 'I'm Goran Paladin.' This is renowned architect Ken Crosson. Ken's going to show me his world ` Has somebody taken the rest of the house away? a world where I know nothing... He must've been smokin' something crazy. ...and he knows,... Concrete, timber, galvanised steel. ...well, nearly everything. Don't get it. Expose him to culture, creativity and style. It's just another case of us stealing something from overseas, isn't it? Who knows? He might actually learn something. Were you not listening? No. I have a tendency of doing that. Maybe we will find a NZ home. Is that a challenge? And I'm up for the challenge. Yeah, cheers, Ken. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 MELLOW GUITAR MUSIC What are we, Ken? About halfway through our journey? Are we any closer to finding the quintessential NZ home? That's what this journey's all about. It started out that way, but I think we're finding it's not a 'one size fits all' situation. Yeah, true. Like, last week's state houses ` all pretty similar ` to the modernist homes ` all wildly different and really interesting. It's a much more complex picture than I first imagined. Have you got something to show me here in Rotorua? It's beautiful out here, isn't it? Tonight ` our journey takes us from the functional to the fanciful as we explore what happened to our homes in the 1950s and '60s. There's a classic joke about NZ. When overseas visitors were asked 'what's NZ like?' I dunno; it was closed. And that was the 1950s. Everything closed at 5pm except the pubs that shut at 6. But it was also when NZ was firmly placed on the world stage by a humble beekeeper who liked to climb mountains. CHEERING JAUNTY MUSIC Kaingaroa Forest on the Central Plateau ` planted as relief work during the Depression ` was part of the inspiration for a young architect and engineer. Part of a post-war Dutch influx, Joe La Grouw saw the potential of those maturing trees, a ready labour market in Rotorua and an interlocking wood design to create a revolutionary new style of home. Joe's son, Joe Jr, grew up in what became and remains a thriving business. This is the property I grew up in, and this is, of course, the house while we were in NZ. Pretty Dutch-looking, Joe. Yes, my father was an architect in Holland, and he took some ideas, no doubt, with him. We bought the section ` it was just a paddock, and we put a big army tent up which we lived in for round about a year while we built the house. You lived in a tent for a year. Yeah, the whole family. That would've been cold. I don't remember that, actually. It's being a kid. That's being a child. You wipe it from your memory. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. I was born in Holland just as the war started, and we emigrated to NZ. My father had a construction business and he said, 'Look, here we've got timber coming out of our ears, labour coming back from the war. 'There are lots of houses required. We need to change our business model.' So they looked around, and they found this system in Norway which was basically stacking planks. And my father, being an architect and an engineer, started looking at how we could develop the system to suit the NZ climate, conditions and so on. Oh, check this out, Ken. Classic Lockwood, isn't it? This is unusual, though. We know Lockwood for being rather knotty. Well, this was one of the first houses ever built in Lockwood, and it's built out of heart matai. At that time, my father, they told him could get as much matai as he needed. After two houses they ran out. ALL LAUGH So they had to go back to something else, which was pine. Pine was just coming into fashion in those days. Cos that's been the timber, really, that we know Lockwood for. Yes. Solid timber on the inside and solid timber on the outside with a layer of insulation between. And put the timber together with aluminium profiles. Hence the name Lockwood. You got it. Joe's not scared to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to his home. Part comfortable home, part show home; this is Lockwood on a grand scale. Here we are trying to find the NZ home and we've got a couple of Dutchmen coming to NZ with a Norwegian idea. But they did alter it... ...to suit the NZ conditions. Yeah. As a matter of fact, we've built houses in most countries around the world now. We built about 150 houses for Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Is that kosher? Not sure about that. They were mainly built for air force staff. Oh. But he built three for himself. One was built in the Euphrates River, only accessible by boat. Safer. Yeah. The other was out in the desert somewhere. Nobody knew exactly where. Quite safe. Again. And one was way up in the mountains, in the snow. Rather safe. You're gonna say it again? Yeah. So you had a choice of safe havens. BOTH LAUGH Yet he was caught in a hole. If he'd have stuck with the Lockwood, he'd be alive today. Exactly. Yeah. WHIMSICAL MUSIC While the La Grouw family were innovating, it seems the rest of the country was almost stuck for ideas. A taste for English cottage-style homes was led by the State Housing scheme. And if you wanted to build your own home, the State was there to help, too, in the form of the State Advances Corporation. But the SAC would only approve loans for a certain type of house ` a house that looked very much like all the others. It sounds like an era of sameness; of boring, safe thinking. No wonder my house is a bit, well, boring. And if NZ society was so conservative, how did Christchurch end up leading the charge? I think most people thought it was repulsive. Unusual, not repulsive. Unusual. 1 Ken, I feel like I'm in Pleasantville, like all these homes look exactly the same. And bar the colour, that house is the same as that house. Yep, there was a lot of similarity in our houses in the '50s which is quite interesting because it was an era where economically we were on top of the world but our society was incredibly conservative. But things must have changed at some point because when I look around modern homes, they are entirely different from these. Yeah. In fact, the '50s and going into the '60s, we saw a real sea change in our ideas. In the early '60s, NZ was still in the middle of its baby boom, and in 1961, wine was allowed to be served in restaurants for the first time. The conservative establishment was beginning to be strongly challenged by an exuberant, confident and increasingly vocal youth. What was the '60s like? WHIMSICAL MUSIC I hate to break it to you ` you're way older than you look. No, you're older than you look. You look older than you are. Keep your eyes on the road, mate. (CHUCKLES) The '60s was an era of experimentation, and the same thing was happening in our architecture. We were kinda of searching for new materials and new forms and new ways of doing things, and the Christchurch school really sprang out of that. There must have been something in the water in Christchurch, though. Arguably the most conservative city in the country, it became the hotbed of architectural ideas. Hard to believe. What was driving that, then? Well, it was more a 'who'. Miles Warren was the undoubted star of what was to become known as the Christchurch school of modernism. Maybe it was a response to the landscape ` flat and leafy ` or maybe it was a rejection of what was going on in the rest of the country, but Miles Warren and his contemporaries were about to shake the idea of the NZ home to its very core. TRANQUIL MUSIC Jeremy Hansen, editor of Home magazine, is a thoroughly modern man. Much of modernism was about technology. It was about industrial processes that enabled windows and doors to be much larger, and that enabled parts of buildings to be prefabricated and made a really different type of building possible. But it also reflected the enormous social transformation of the time ` that people wanted to live in different ways, so architects had to come up with ways to address that. The interesting thing about modernist houses is many of them are 50 years old and don't need adaptation. They still perfectly suit a contemporary lifestyle. The key to people appreciating these structures is being in them, enjoying them and knowing the stories about them, because often they can seem depersonalised, but if you know that it was designed by a person who was expressing this idea in this modernist building, then I think they take on a sense of humanity that people don't understand otherwise. When you talk about Miles Warren, I love the story of him designing the Dorset St flats ` still a really contemporary example of high-density living that would be applicable in most cities now. Bus tours were taken past those buildings and they were pointed out as the ugliest buildings in Christchurch, which I think they're far from that, and they were fantastic for their occupants, but it was such a radical shift for people who were used to these genteel timber dwellings with decorative aspects to the outside to suddenly see concrete blocks facing the street. It took a long time for people to get their heads around that. And let's face it, a lot of people still don't like that style of architecture. They've been badly knocked around by the Christchurch earthquakes, but the Dorset St flats are still here. It all seems pretty radical, even now. I've asked Matt Arnold to meet us here and show us a few of the best examples of this amazing era. Matt's a young graphic designer who has a real passion for these beautiful structures. Proving beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, Matt, it's a definite shift away from anything else that we've seen so far in our journey. Yeah, I mean, this building's the first of that Christchurch style, and it was really the building that put Miles Warren on the map. It was just Miles and three of his friends ` bachelors in their late 20s. They built it, moved into the four flats down the bottom and leased the four flats up the top. This street was really just small timber cottages, and then up sprung this concrete toilet block. (LAUGHS) Yeah, would've been quite radical in that respect, wouldn't it? Yeah, I think so because Miles had just come back from London and this was probably quite a continental way of thinking ` you know, having a really small house in the city where you could walk to work. And this was a time when everybody was moving to the suburbs. Yeah, well, definitely. And that style of building became, kind of, the way of building in the 1960s in Christchurch. So once he put this up, people started to get on board with this concept? Well, I think most people thought it was repulsive. Unusual, not repulsive. Unusual. But there were a number of people attracted to it, you know, and repelled at the same time. And, you know, Miles was well connected socially, and this was a time when he partnered up with Maurice Mahoney to become Warren and Mahoney. I'm seeing concrete blocks. I'm thinking cowsheds, motels, but not homes and certainly not a whole new way of thinking. But it was a new way of thinking. It's called brutalism from the French 'beton brut', or raw concrete. But the emotional meaning of the word is important, too. These buildings were what they were. It's a style that shows its bones; no hiding how the home was made or what it was made of. Five to eight years later, this is really where Warren and Mahoney were going. You can see the materials and the styles very much derive from the Dorset St flats we were just at. It's a bit bigger this one, isn't it? Yeah, certainly an upgrade, isn't it? Significant. I mean, this is a wealthy person's house in an affluent suburb. I think it just looks wonderful. It's great from the street, isn't it? It is. Beautiful proportion, that end gable. Oh, it's magical. So crisp, no eaves. And the way it kind of sits right out on the street. This house is 60 years old and you can see how clearly it's loved. Yeah, it's well maintained. It's beautifully looked after. Looks like it was put together yesterday. All right. Well, shall we keep going? Sure. Yeah, let's. Warren and Mahoney might have led the way, but others were quick to pick up the style and fashion. Brutalism was invading the suburbs of Christchurch. It's interesting here you can see how they've rolled out that style into the suburbs. Five different architects, all with their own take on that Christchurch modern style, always in the same materials. So in some respects, Miles was a bit of a pioneer. He brought this concept to Christchurch and other architects saw what he was able to achieve and they picked up the ball and ran with it. Miles and Morris set the standard and they established some patterns, but then it was really a whole bunch of people kind of feeding off each other in a really positive way. So it was competitive and everyone wanted to outdo each other. This little cul de sac kind of represents the vision that these guys had for the whole of Christchurch. I can talk about this stuff all day. I can tell. ALL LAUGH Matt's a nice bloke ` knowledgeable and passionate. I'm not sure about this brutalism as a style, though. Not really my cup of tea. Nor would I want to build on to my house in concrete block. The style was strong and confident. Here was a movement that made the rest of the country sit up and take notice. The young generation was embracing anything that was different, and this was different. Let's take a closer look at one. You need to use the little boys' room or something? What do you mean? Well, why are you taking me to a toilet block? Don't be so disrespectful. Just wait until you get inside. This magnificent home is owned by Raymond. Good afternoon. Raymond. If you're lucky enough to get hold of one of these homes, you hang on to it and look after it. CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC Here are these plans you wanted to have a look at. Ah, the old school, eh? Jeez, I can see now there are three distinct areas, aren't there? Yeah. They were breaking the big forms that we used to see in our houses up into a series of little rooms. So we've got a roof over the kitchen, dining, living; we've got a separate roof over the lounge and a separate roof over the bedroom wing. I especially like how he offset the lounge a couple of feet from the rest of the house and had glass partitions. And that was that little moment as you go through you can actually see to the outside. And by offsetting, you get these little outside rooms as well, so little sheltered spaces with protection from the easterly and the westerly winds. < And you've got a couple of kids, as well, don't you, Raymond? Yes. So maybe wedge them over here in the family room and you just hang out in the living room` Exactly. ...doing your own thing. And you can have the stereo as loud as you like, doesn't affect anybody. Blaring. Outstanding. This home has all the hallmarks that made the Christchurch school so important. It represented a strong approach to home design driven by a good understanding of the needs of the people who would live here. Now, that's a useful concept. I'm not sure whoever designed my Birkdale do-up was too worried about what it would be like to live in. Interesting the way these spaces, too, all connect to the outside. You know, one-level house, every room essentially has a door to the outside. You wanna take a look outside? Love to. Come on. Look how beautifully it sits in the landscape. It just seems to fit here. A while back I had a chat with Sir Miles and he commented that he was especially happy with the form of the roof. And I think he was actually working in the islands and he was kind of influenced by bures and Pacific architecture at the time. It's interesting here, too, looking at the concrete block ` Sir Miles was the first architect in NZ to bring the ubiquitous concrete block from the cowshed and the garage into residential architecture. And by careful detailing ` you look at the eave line around the joinery ` it makes it look really really beautiful. These barn-style doors are interesting. The old stable door. They are interesting, aren't they? You know, a room feels so different having the ability to have a door out of it compared to just a window. Mm. Where's Goran? I don't know. Keys are in it. ENGINE ROARS POWERFULLY Oh yes. Oh yeah. QUIRKY MUSIC ENGINE STOPS QUIRKY MUSIC CONTINUES Out, buddy. Out. Raymond's Corvette is exactly the same age as his house, confirming what I thought ` Americans have a totally different sense of style. But social change was about to drive our NZ home in a completely different direction. And Dad sitting in front of the fireplace with his slippers on, reading the paper, waiting for dinner. 1 DRIVING GUITAR MUSIC While this experimental housing was happening in Christchurch, there was a huge move to suburbia in the rest of the country. Why was that? Well, there was a workforce that was required, and it was being fuelled by people coming in from the country and also coming across from the Pacific Islands. Right. So everybody's moving into the city for work. Is it gonna have a happy ending, this tale? Well, it probably has a bit of a mixed ending. Oh. SUBDUED MUSIC Before World War II, over 80% of Maori were living rurally, most within their tribal areas. The economic boom that followed the war dramatically increased demand for labour in our towns and cities, and opportunity in rural areas was increasingly limited. By the 1960s, relocation of Maori to cities had become official policy. I see what you mean. That doesn't sound like it's going to end well. And once it started, it was fast. By the mid-'60s, more than 60% of our Maori population were urbanised. The biggest problem was finding good homes for all these people. The influx was so great and so sudden, there was little choice but for the state to build large housing estates in outlying suburbs that grew into Maori communities. And so we saw another unique house type ` the state house of the '50s and '60s. These houses were simple, cottage-like designs but well built and solid. But loads of them all in the same place? That's not adding character. Goran, this is a brilliant example of the old brick and tile that was built in the '50s and '60s. Very orange. Yeah, very much. The roof's quite interesting because it's the old Marseille tile that was imported from Australia, and bricks were the ubiquitous bricks from Everywheres-ville. This is a classic example of the old English cottage style of house that the Housing Corp were building back in that time. So this is a precursor to my house? It is, it is, but there's a difference here. Notice the solidity of the materials and the way it's put together. This is more solid than my house. (LAUGHS) These are incredibly well built, largely by immigrant labour that came over after the war from England, and there was just thousands of them built throughout the country. They became so popular that not only Housing NZ was building them but Group houses started copying the style as well. OK, so the bones are good. What are we gonna find on the inside? Is that gonna be better than my house as well? That's where you've got a slight advantage. Yours opened up, connected to the outside. This one is a series of little rooms. So my house does have its benefits over this one. It does. Let's go and have a look inside. (LAUGHS) All right. TRANQUIL MUSIC The inside of the old state house. Essentially front door, corridor, and all the rooms open off. Yeah, there doesn't appear to be any flow at all. Well, no, no, the spaces are a series of single cells in a way ` individual rooms ` and they don't connect to the outside, either. MUSIC CONTINUES Why did they create it that way? Well, this is a plan that was adopted from England. You know, again, appropriating from elsewhere. This was the English cottage-style house. You know, there was no insulation in the houses, so heating was an issue. Keep the spaces small ` easier to heat. Kitchen, dining ` very very small, very tight. The warmth of the kitchen, then they moved into the living room and the fire. Let's have a look at the lounge. After you. MUSIC SWELLS Classic old timber joinery. Yeah. Beautiful condition for 60 years old. Yeah. It's quite incredible, really. Well, this space is the biggest space in the house where they actually did spend the money, if you like. It's a good-sized lounge, but what I see for this place ` bi-fold doors, a huge deck, barbecue, brews. It's gonna be a dream home one day. Well, that's what we'd do these days. Yeah, we'd just connect to the outside. And we'd knock out those internal walls as well, connect the kitchen to dining to living. Done. Connect to the outside. Too easy, eh? Sounds it. Shall we take a look at that kitchen? Let's go and have a look at it. LILTING MUSIC It's pretty 1950s, Goran. Mm. It's a period piece. Look at this storage. LILTING MUSIC CONTINUES Classic, eh. These kitchens were basically a U, and you had the dining space in the middle. There? There, yeah. So completely different to kitchen designs today where they're independent of the dining space. The dining space was actually in the kitchen here. Yeah, so this was Mum's domain at the end of the day. Mum and the kids, and Dad probably sitting in front of the fireplace with his slippers on, reading the paper, waiting for dinner. Believe it or not. Sounds ideal for a busy man. You know, he comes home from work. He doesn't want the hustle and bustle of the kids and wife. You can't say that. Can't say that. GENTEEL MUSIC Tony van Raat's an architect with strong ideas about the suburbs that grew up in these times. Most of the suburbs that most NZers occupy now were developed in a time when we were operating in the Los Angeles post-1950s mode where everybody had a car. And we all do. Most NZ households now has a car because they have to, because public transport doesn't yet meet their needs and the suburbs reflect that. I remember hearing a middle-aged woman and her daughter talking. The older woman said, 'It was fantastic when I was first a single mother because the men would go to work 'but the suburb would remain activated by a whole population of women and children.' And the daughter said, 'Well, it's not like that now. The suburbs empty out.' Yep, that's the problem, all right. But is there a solution? Do we proliferate the suburbs endlessly into a series of villages encroaching into the landscape? Or do we say that our cities have to be more dense so we can provide infrastructure to them that works? There's certainly no avoiding it. If you build all the houses at the same time, they're going to look the same. Mine's like that too except there are more trees. I think the problem lies in the way we think about our homes. They should say something about us, who we are, what we believe in, and I'm not sure these sprawling suburbs do that. These developments were heavily reliant on people having cars, and that caused further problems ` problems we're still trying to sort out today. And what about the woman's voice in all of this? Would that make a difference? Women were edited out of our story. 1 The 1960s brought us television, and our world began to shrink. Suddenly the rest of the world was available in our lounges, albeit in black and white. And the new world awareness was being expressed in protests against the establishment. The war in Vietnam and French nuclear testing were hot topics for young Kiwis who were breaking their bonds with the past. Christchurch was still experimenting with new styles of architecture, and architects like Paul Pascoe were able to express themselves with ingenuity and flair. Restrictions like a long narrow section and a shortage of building materials were seen as creative challenges, and this little house is the result. He built it for himself and his family. Unusual for its time, the living area was upstairs with large windows facing north and the beach. So far so good. I like the unusual shape, and I like the 'face the beach, face the sun' thing. It gets better. Roger, the proud owner, has invited us in for a glass of red wine. If you squint, you can see why the locals call it the Piano House. An upright grand, I reckon. Gidday, Roger. Nice to see you again. Gidday, Ken. How are you? I'm good, thanks. Roger, this is Goran. Roger, pleased to meet ya. How are ya? Come on up. Thank you. After you, sir. After a day on the road, I think we deserve a quiet refreshment, and Roger's taste in wine is as good as his taste in homes. I heard through the grapevine that you've got a strong dislike for dairy farmers. Can you tell me a bit about that? Well, I tried to buy a section about two blocks down that had an old house that I wanted to bowl and build a new house. And that section had exactly the same orientation as this, but some dairy farmer just bid through the roof. Afterwards the agent said to me, 'If you'd told me you were willing to bid 450 grand for that section, 'I wouldn't have believed you couldn't have bought it for that,' but no, I couldn't. < The dairy farmer just had too much money for me. OK. Yeah, and then a couple of weeks afterwards I was offered the chance to buy this house and I took it. To have this gesture on the street is quite unusual. The deck projects out towards the view. It's quite interesting. So it really throws your view down to the beach. It'd be one of the few houses on the flat that actually has a view, I suspect. COMICAL MUSIC If I said that this place reminded me of a boat, what would you say? Just because it's long, and I feel like this is the stern. This is the bow. The front. Where's the stern? The pointy bit. Oh, OK, so that's the bow? I've had one too many drinks. Mm. Um, I can see where you're coming from. I had a friend that's a landscape gardener, and I said, 'How should I decorate my house?' And he said you should put in a walkway like you're at a dock because it reminded him of a very, sort of, nautical look. OK. So I'm not the only one. > You're not alone. And I guess this was very much a seaside little village back then, wasn't it? Yeah. Half the houses wouldn't have been here, I imagine. So it was almost like a holiday home in that regard. But very much of its era, too. You know, with the weatherboards, the simplicity, post-war, a little bit austere. I think they were limited to the amount of space they could actually build post-war, so, you know, it's pretty economical the way it uses space. There's not a lot of wasted space. And it's such a tiny section. Mm. You know, it's so narrow. You know, with our height relation to boundary rules these days, just doesn't comply with anything. CHUCKLES: No. GRAND MUSIC It hasn't got the indoor-outdoor flow that a lot of people covet, which I think is probably more important when you've got young kids, but you get the sun till late so a lot of my time is spent in the kitchen in particular where the light just pours in at late evening. GRAND MUSIC CONTINUES I think that Pascoe built the house like this, elevated, so he can take advantage of this wonderful view down the street out to the sea, so he could do what we're doing right now. Sit in the sun and see the view. Yeah. You got it. You got it. Cheers, mate. Cheers, Roger. Cheers. Cheers, Roger. In many ways, this home is typical of the work Pascoe was doing at the time ` strongly modernist, his ideas reflected a carefully planned yet modest approach and a good understanding of the environment the houses were placed in. A cool, skinny house on a skinny section near the beach. Is that what you just said? Something like that. Thanks, Roger. Yeah, good to see you again, Ken. Yeah, lovely. And nice to meet you too. Yeah, likewise, Roger. Thanks for having us, mate. We'll see you again soon. Safe journeys. See ya later. NZ was heading deeper into the '60s. It was an era of increasing freedom, especially for women. Tight government restrictions on homes were coming to an end. NZ was entering an era of hope, and architects were beginning to stretch their creative wings. One of the really big deals about modernism, and the thing that really moved living space forwards, was the move towards open plan. Growing out of the somewhat radical idea that the family should be all together, architects began opening up the living spaces. The kitchen and dining room became part of the space that connected to the living room. It's hard to believe it was any other way now. My Birkdale do-up isn't perfect, but it does have an open-plan living area. More than anything else, the idea of open plan has revolutionised the way we live in our homes. Gone is the separation of kitchen and dining from living. All these activities belong together. Or that was the thinking of the time. The '60s was an important time for us. Changes in society were happening ever faster, and in many, women were now at the forefront. The '60s was an era where there was quite a fundamental shift in the design of the NZ home, and women's role was changing. They were out in the workforce a lot more and they weren't at home all of the time looking after the children. The kitchens radically changed as well. We had all those labour-saving devices. We had dishwashers; we had more efficient stoves. Yeah, frees up her time. I mean, just chop up everything, put it in a crockpot, walk away. Catch up with the girls, gossiping like mad. HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: 'Oh, Darryl's so annoying. He leaves his socks and his jocks everywhere.' Surprisingly, architecture has always been a strongly male-dominated profession, although women have always been part of the backroom, according to fellow architect Lynda Simmons. Women were involved in architectural offices. And women were working with some of the big-name architects. So for example there's Esther James in the 1920s. She worked on the St Kevins Arcade building on K Rd. So they were there, but they weren't visible at all. Esther James perhaps typified the establishment's attitude towards women in architecture. A shining light of creativity, she worked as an apprentice architect for three years, but was reportedly refused an architectural degree because she was a woman. It's actually just the truth of the social and political force at the time. Women were edited out of our story. So I wonder whether women design homes differently from men. The idea that all women design in a similar way is absurd, in my view. So all men don't design the same way. I agree that the process of design is definitely different, but I don't think that we can reduce it to a physical kind of manifestation. There's just too many other things at play in architecture. It's not that simple. But are there simple concepts that will make our homes truly Kiwi? You really appreciate it as a sense of space or a sense of volume. So it was radical. 1 In an era of such volatility and change, it's perhaps little wonder that there was a loud, assertive voice in the world of architecture. That voice belonged to a precocious bunch of young architects who wrote as part of their manifesto... 'NZ must have its own architecture, 'its own sense of what is beautiful and appropriate to our climate and conditions.' Cheers, buddy. Cheers, mate. Another cafe, another hot chocolate for me. Another espresso, and a good one. This one is good, too. Very chocolatey, and that is the key to a good hot chocolate. A good hot chocolate. It is. Getting a lot of chocolatey flavour in there. (LAUGHS) Goran, I want to tell you about the Group. What group? Like a rock group or...? What do you mean? Well, they were actually rock stars, I have to say. This was a collection of young architects that thought that NZ should have a home that really reflected us as a nation. Oh, really? So finally, in our fourth week of searching, we're about to see a key NZ style of home? I feel like we're getting somewhere. Well, maybe if you reflect back we saw Maori architecture, and that was very reflective of us. Then we had the colonists, and they, of course, bought what they` Ruined everything. ...knew and were familiar with. What am I gonna see when I walk into a Group home? Well, the Group homes actually were described as 'cowshed' homes. (LAUGHS) Everyone wants to live in a cowshed (!) This is good. This is great. To them, that was actually something positive. They thought they'd made it because they wanted an architecture that was stripped back, pared back to necessities. They were concerned about the little man. They wanted something cost effective and no ornamentation that was unnecessary. And they wanted something that connected to the outside with very simple shapes ` gables and hips. Despite the cowshed moniker, it sounds like a really nice way of living ` a way I would like to live myself. You know, that connection to the outside, open-plan living. It sounds like a dream. Very much so. I think it was a watershed in our architecture and has had a huge influence even up until now. Drink up before your thimble gets cold, mate. I always think it's quality not quantity, Goran. Ah. The Group was to become one of NZ's most celebrated architectural practices. Their confident, uncompromising ideas were experimental and bold. Their mission was to revolutionise the NZ home, to make it truly for and about NZers. In typical fashion, and somewhat arrogantly, they named their first two houses House Number One and House Number Two. This is House Number Two, and it's a beauty. Extending on Maori forms and really pushing the boat out in the open-plan department, this home, essentially unchanged from when it was first built, has really stood the test of time. So how come I've never heard of them until now? Surely there should be Group houses everywhere? And shouldn't Group houses be held in the highest regard even to this day? I'll let Jeremy Hansen pick that one up. It pains me that they're not revered as much, but I think as time passes, people do develop a greater appreciation for the buildings that came from the past. The Group's buildings were very rational, but they were also very economical, and they were very humane in the way that they dealt with materials but also in the way that they dealt with climate. So it was imperative for the Group architects to make sure that a building provided the occupants with a great degree of comfort throughout the year. And nowadays our notions of comfort have changed a little bit, and I think we might find some of the Group buildings a little under-insulated and a little bit too experimental, but they placed the occupants' needs at a higher level than some of the modernists did, who were so into their own ideology that they developed a reputation for perhaps overlooking the needs of their clients, in some cases. No problem with the clients for this Group house. Designed by Bruce Rotherham for himself, it was and still is a bit of a show home for their talents. Amazingly, Bruce's son Jeremy lives here now with his partner, and Group expert, Julia Gatley. This might be one of the first of a new direction. Hi, Julia. Nice to see you again. Welcome to the Rotherham house. Come on through. UPLIFTING MUSIC Holy moley. Ooh. Oh my God. It's an experience. I feel like I'm climbing Everest or something. What's that about? Well, the house is all about different materials, so the timber is huge as well. The expression of the brick on the stair column in the middle. And then the stone is the third material. And perhaps there's another one ` the big glass wall. The glass wall is a really important part of the house, but also the detail of it's really fantastic. The structure is so fine, there's a real connection, isn't there? Yes. Here you're part of the outside. Each of those pieces of glass is overlapping with the one below it like a shiplap weatherboard system. They're loose, just sitting in copper troughs held together by lead. I'm assuming that's not double glazed? No. Absolutely not double glazed. We have a big fire. I have many jerseys. I'm a woman of many jerseys. LAUGHTER < That's right. UPLIFTING MUSIC This was a huge departure from the architecture that was happening in the '40s and '50s. Bruce had his own description for it which was 'space formed by building'. So you really appreciate it as a sense of space or a sense of volume, so it was radical, particularly the mezzanine, the post and beam construction and the diagonal timber on the ceiling. There's no doors... Right. ...inside at all. It's as open as it gets. Vertically as well as horizontally. You're very conscious of coming under the mezzanine with the low ceiling and then at either end you go back out into the double-height space of the studio or the kitchen. Bruce designed the house for himself as a bachelor pad and then he met the woman he would marry, and they had two children and adapted the house for a family to live in. > And Jeremy came along. That's right. < And was born here. That's right, I was, yeah. SWELLING MUSIC How was this received? The Group were part of a larger number of people ` a sort of arts scene ` who, at that time, were all interested in the development of a NZ arts culture. People from that community loved the idea of a modern architecture that would be responding to NZ culture and NZ conditions rather than only emulating overseas models. Beyond that community, it was quite shocking. So how do you preserve things like this? These important pieces of our architectural history. You cannot alter it because it uses the minimum amount of materials to hold it up. You couldn't take out that`? No. You can't do alterations. > You either have to accept it as it is and live in it or it would have to go. Yeah. There's really no compromise with this house. The most important thing is to have people owning them who appreciate them for what they are and don't want to change them. So, we haven't had to make any major changes to this place since we moved in. We live in it, and it's great as it is. Wow. That's quite a statement. A floating mezzanine floor and a rough stone floor. Not surprised that didn't catch on. And yet there's a feeling about this house; it's something special ` a sincere attempt to create a NZ home that's nothing but Kiwi. MUSIC FADES SLOWLY Are we starting to head in a direction where we're finding something specifically NZ, would you say? Look, I think this is an era where we are making a big shift. There was an active arts community in NZ; there was an active literature community and an architectural scene. I think we'd looked at the world and decided that perhaps we don't need to borrow. There was enough here that gave us an identity. We were getting a confidence about who we are as a people. Yeah. I think it was interesting, though, that we started thinking also about is there an appropriate or a more appropriate way? And using the resources, using what we had in our architecture and our homes. We were experimenting with things which talked about us as a nation, and so we were doing an architecture and a home that actually reflected that. This was perhaps the start of a real NZ architecture. Finally. Where are we going next? Follow me. Away we go.