ernst plischke: architect

The centenary of Ernst Plischke’s birth was marked in Vienna last year by major exhibitions of his work as an architect, town-planner and furniture-designer. Two important publications appeared, further underlining his status as a central figure in twentieth century Austrian architecture. Remarkably, Plischke is also a major presence in the history of New Zealand architecture, having spent twenty-four years of his working life in Wellington and producing over half of his designs in this country.

This exhibition offers a perspective on Plischke’s work in both Europe and in New Zealand. The first part of the exhibition, ERNST PLISCHKE IN EUROPE, features original drawings, plans and photographs from museum collections in Vienna which document the architect’s formative years in Austria, as well as his output during the last years of his life (1963-92) when he returned to Vienna to take up an academic post. The form and concepts apparent in the early modernist designs in this gallery provided the basis for Plischke’s subsequent work in New Zealand.

The second half of the exhibition, ERNST PLISCHKE IN NEW ZEALAND, comprises plans, drawings and photographs from Viennese and New Zealand collections. This material illustrates the extent and quality of Plischke’s work in this country, highlighting his role – as both an ideologue and practitioner – in the fields of town-planning and house, church, monument and furniture design.

This project – and the accompanying publication Ernst Plischke by Eva Ottilinger and August Sarnitz – acknowledges the ongoing relevance of the work of an architect who was, as historian Janet Paul wrote in 1998, fundamentally committed to the spirit of modernism and the ‘new concepts of space and sculptural quality which "make a building alive and its architectural quality sensually appreciable".’ An exemplary figure for later generations of architects in Austria and New Zealand, Plischke was singleminded, fastidious, idealistic, at times difficult to deal with, yet capable of realising some of the pivotal buildings in the architectural history of both countries.

City Gallery Wellington gratefully acknowledges the professional expertise, scholarship and generous support that the following people and organisations contributed to the realisation of this exhibition: Professor August Sarnitz and Dr. Monika Knofler, Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) Vienna; Dr. Eva Ottilinger, Kaiserliches Hofmobiliendepot (Imperial Furniture Collection) Vienna; Linda Tyler; Chris Cochran; Gordon Moller, New Zealand Institute of Architects; Alistair Luke, Jasmax; Tom Bridgman and Greg Bowron, Housing New Zealand Corporation; Tim Nees, New Work Studio; Joanna Newman, Wellington City Archives; Magnum Mac; and photographers Paul McCredie, Ken Downie and Victoria Birkinshaw. We thank the private collectors and public institutions who have generously loaned works; we acknowledge the creative advertising design provided by Saatchi & Saatchi; and we thank our core funder – Wellington City Council through the Wellington Museums Trust.

ernst plischke in europe

Born in the town of Klosterneuberg near Vienna in 1903, Ernst Plischke grew up in an atmosphere of building and design. His father was an architect in the Ministry of Public Works and his mother came from a family of cabinet-makers. From early childhood he spent time in studios and workshops, and later trained in furniture and interior design at Vienna’s College of Arts and Crafts. Encouraged by his father to become an architect, when he turned twenty Plischke was accepted for the Master School run by the notable architect and teacher Peter Behrens.

Plischke’s early designs – completed while still a student – show the decisive traits of his mature architecture: simplicity, clarity and a love for materials. His design for the Mineral Bath, Karlsbad (1924-25) also manifests the dynamism and repetitious forms of an emerging modernist style. ‘With Doesburg’s theoretical work, all traditional ideas on space and form were exploded and a new architectural language inaugurated,’ he wrote. ‘That was the situation in architecture which I was faced with as a student in the early twenties. This period brought about a fundamental change of values and standards.’

Plischke was also captivated by harmonious balancing, incorporating, in a single project, solid forms and transparency, structural and sculptural elements, deliberation and spontaneity. These concerns shaped all his work, whether in the field of architecture, town planning or furniture design. Plischke’s ongoing interest in interior design is manifest in the many drawings and plans he completed during the 1920s – notable among them, the designs for the Long Island Apartment (1928-29) and Böhm Apartment (1930).

Graduating from the Academy in 1926, Plischke received the ‘Meisterschulpreis’ which led directly to employment in Behrens’ private office. In 1929 he travelled to New York where he worked in the design department of E. Kahn. This was his first exposure to the ‘New World’ and he was excited to be away from Europe. The advent of the Depression, however, ruined Plischke’s plans of remaining in New York.

The following year, back in Vienna, he received a commission from the Austrian Goverment to design an employment office. The building – Labour Exchange, Liesing (1930-31) – appeared in Architectural Forum New York and the prestigious French journal Architecture d’Aujourdhui, establishing the twenty-eight year old at the forefront of Austrian architecture. (With the advent of Nazism the building was deemed ‘Bolshevik’ in its design and was boarded up until after the war.)

While attracted to the clean lines and striking forms of modernist architecture, Plischke also sought a quality of ‘inwardness’, which he considered the real ‘Esprit Nouveau’ in the work of Le Corbusier and the Dutch ‘De Stijl’ group. As a young man he had read Kierkegaard, St Francis of Assisi, and been attracted to Eastern philosophy. It was, however, not until he embarked upon a number of church designs in New Zealand that he was able to explore in depth the spiritual dimension he considered an integral part of architecture.

Plischke’s greatest early house design, the Gamerith House at Lake Attersee, was built in 1933–34. It was influenced by Japanese house design rather than the peasant houses in evidence around the lakefront. In its sympathetic relationship with its environment and its boat-like quality, the Gamerith House prefigures the dwellings Plischke would later build in New Zealand.

In 1935, the year he married Anna Lang-Schwizer, Plischke was awarded the Austrian State Prize. In the lead-up to the Second World War, however, the architectural, as well as the political scene, was changing drastically. With the German occupation of Austria in March 1938, German law was imposed in Austria and all craftsmen, including architects, had to become members of a centralised Chamber of Arts.

Upon his arrival in New Zealand in 1939, Plischke explained his decision to leave Vienna: ‘Unless one was a member of the Chamber of Arts, it was impossible to get work. The fact that my wife is a Jewess was a matter that excluded any chance of my being admitted…thus I was excluded from getting any work in my own occupation. This was one of the reasons why I decided to leave Austria. Another reason was that modern architecture, which formed the principal part of my training and work, was banned with the advent of Hitler taking over control of my country.’

gamerith house

‘The construction of the building is a skeleton frame in timber. In order to prevent the water which flows down the hill from collecting behind the house, the stilts are set on concrete blocks. In this way an expensive insulation has been avoided. To ensure warm floors the construction consists of one massive slab of tightly fitting tree-trunks. There is an insulating air space between the ceiling and the rafters of the roof. This visible severance of ceiling and roof gives the structure a clear distinction.

The continuous window-wall stands independently, cantilevering in front of the skeleton frame. The projecting roof protects the window from the mid-day sun in the summer but allows for the full benefit of the winter sun. In order to bring the outline of the house into harmony with the forest behind it, the outline of the house was erected on the spot in timber laths during the design stage. At the same time, with the help of this scaffolding, the height of the windows to frame the view was fixed…

In the conflict between construction and pure architectural sculpture the individual temperament shows itself decisively. The architect can choose, for instance, to have the structural elements under an overall skin in order to achieve a more quiet form, or he can expose the structural elements to emphasize the dramatic quality of the structure.’

Extracted from Ernst Plischke, On the Human Aspect in Modern Architecture, 1969

LATE YEARS, VIENNA, 1963–1992

In 1963 Ernst Plischke left Wellington, where he had lived for twenty-four years, and returned to Vienna to become Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. The position was the highest architectural teaching position in Austria and the appointment was signed by the President of the Republic and approved by cabinet. His predecessors in the position included his teacher Peter Behrens and architect Otto Wagner.

Between 1965 and 1973, Plischke also held the position of Head of the Institute of Sacral Art, and served in 1965 and 1966 as President of the Academy. Teaching and writing took much of his energy during the last three decades of his life, although two significant houses were built during that period: the Frey House in Graz (1970-73) and the Koller-Glück House in Vienna (1971-74). Notable among Plischke’s books from this time are Vom Menschlichen im neuen Bauen (‘On the human aspect in modern architecture’), which was published in 1969, and a major account of his life appeared in 1989: Ernst A. Plischke; Ein Leben mit Architektur.

Among the many honours he received after his return to Austria were the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and the Arts, First Class (1973) and the Golden Medal of Honor for Science and the Arts (1988). He was made Honorary Member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1983), Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects (1987) and Honorary Member of the Austrian Society of Architecture (1988).

Ernst Plischke died, aged 89, in Vienna on 23 May 1992. Since then, his reputation has continued to grow in Europe. To mark the centenary of his birth, two major books were published (the English language edition of Ernst Plischke is released this year to coincide with City Gallery Wellington’s exhibition). Despite the fact most of his significant projects were built in New Zealand, Plischke is celebrated as a pioneering figure in modernist architecture in Austria.

‘Rather than demolishing or altering his buildings as many of his New Zealand houses have been altered,’ writes architectural historian Linda Tyler, ‘Viennese enthusiasts for Plischke’s work have ensured the preservation and restoration of all his Austrian work. The Gamerith House at Lake Attersee is now a house museum, and the Labour Exchange at Liesing, a suburb of Vienna, which was boarded up during the Nazi occupation of Austria, has now been restored to something like its original splendour.’

ERNST PLISCHKE iN NEW ZEALAND

Wellingtonians were, not surprisingly, suspicious of Ernst Plischke when he arrived in their city in 1939. As well as being Austrian – or ‘German’ as he was designated under the Alien Emergency Regulations – he was a striking figure, an intellectual and, as historian Janet Paul has written, ‘a brilliant architect brought up in the Vienna of Mahler, Gropius, Wittgenstein and Freud… he was already recognised in Europe as a second-generation leader of the Modern movement in architecture’.

Accompanied by his wife Anna, Plischke – then aged thirty-six – was already known in New Zealand architectural circles: his work had been reproduced in magazines and he was cited in J. M. Richards’ influential book An Introduction to Modern Architecture (1939) as one of the leading exponents of international modernist design.

Working under Gordon Wilson, Plischke began as a draughtsman for the Ministry of Housing’s Department of Housing Construction, where he remained until 1942, contributing to projects such as the Dixon St Flats (1940-42) and Multiunits, Orakei (1939-41). From 1943-47 he worked in the Department of Town Planning on projects for Naenae, Trentham, Tamaki and Mangakino. During this time he also completed a number of private commissions, the first of which was the Frankl House in Christchurch (1939-40). These were difficult years for Plischke and his family, who had to suffer prejudice on account of their nationality. On numerous occasions they were accused of being German spies.

During his time in New Zealand, Plischke suffered many disappointments. He never felt integrated into architectural circles – although the fact he was not prepared to sit the Royal Institute of British Architects examinations and become a registered architect contributed to his outsider status. He felt that as a qualified Civil Architect, whose work was known internationally, he should not be made to sit any further exams. As a consequence, he did not become a member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects until he was awarded an honorary fellowship in 1969. His buildings never appeared in the journal of the Institute or in Home and Building.

In 1947, by which time he had become a naturalised New Zealander, Plischke applied for the position of chair in design at the School of Architecture at Auckland University College. ‘Had he been appointed he would have turned the school into a modern institution,’ says architect Bill Toomath, who was one of a group of students who urged Plischke to apply for the job. Instead, the university made a conservative appointment, giving the job to Alfred Light, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

As a result of being unregistered, when Plischke left public service in 1947 he had to form partnerships with registered architects in order to work. In 1948 he founded, with Cedric H. Firth, the firm ‘Plishke & Firth’ (Plischke dropped the ‘c’ in his surname at this time, reinstating it upon his return to Austria). Within that partnership, the two men tended to work on their separate projects. In the case of their largest commission, Massey House (1951-57), Firth secured the contract but was overseas when much of the design was being done. Accordingly, the concept is almost entirely by Plischke, with Firth contributing some detailing and finishing.

The partnership broke up in 1959 and the following year Plischke joined the Czechoslovakian refugee Robert Fantl in an architectural partnership. With no major projects in progress, Plischke was at a low ebb during the early 1960s. When, in 1963, an academic appointment in Vienna was offered, he accepted and with, from most accounts, a certain reluctance, left his adopted home to resume his life in Austria.

town-planning

When we decide upon the character of our house, we decide on the appearance of the street. When we all do so, we decide upon the appearance and order of our towns. Ernst Plischke

Ernst Plischke began working in the Department of Housing Construction as an architectural draughtsman in 1939. One of his earliest projects was the design of four house-units in the Auckland suburb of Orakei. Plischke had been critical of the Department’s multi-unit accommodation on account of the external stairs and difficult access to upper levels. Instead, he proposed two storey single-units. The large open verandahs, a key characteristic of his house designs, were later dispensed with when the units were built.

Plischke also worked with other members of the Department on the Dixon St Flats in Wellington. The building was designed in 1940-42 as a showpiece for the state housing programme; its modern style intended to reflect the progress of the state. There is still debate surrounding Plischke’s exact contribution to the design, although there is no doubt he was a leading proponent in arguing for the functional form of the building. The streamlined exterior, particularly the cantilevered walkways that make up the rear elevation and the stepping roofline of the front façade are characteristic elements of the European modernism Plischke brought with him to New Zealand.

Plischke’s design input into the stepped houses at Strathmore Park (1940-41), with their flat roofs, is easier to discern. Their genesis, claimed Plischke, was derived from a talk he gave on the steep housing found in Positano, Italy.

In 1942 Plischke moved to the planning section of the Department of Housing Construction as a community planner. Under the auspices of Department head, Reginald Hammond, he worked on community centres and planning schemes for the forestry towns of Mangakino and Kaingaroa and the new suburbs of Auckland, Whangarei, Palmerston North, Dunedin and the Hutt Valley.

‘Town-planning cannot be good town-planning as long as it is confined to such everyday considerations as the layout of streets and the provision of sewer drainage,’ wrote Plischke in Design and Living. He considered beauty and proportion, seemliness and order in design equally important. These ideas were articulated in the planning schemes for suburbs like Otangarei, Trentham and Tamaki. The plans were lessons in functionality based on the car or the pedestrian, and scaled according to the mode of transport. They featured a pattern of ring roads and cul-de-sacs that look something like the circulation nodes of a brain. The schemes relied on centrally placed reserves that all houses looked onto and which had good pedestrian access. ‘The people will no longer have to follow the usual rigid gridiron or the ribbon street system. Pleasant walks through the park would be part of everyday life,’ said Plischke. Large groups of trees were intended to break up the vast reserves giving a sense of intimacy and providing shelter.

However, Plischke’s community centres were not English villages: instead they were post-war designs to meet a new, modern way of living. ‘We have once again a chance to plan our towns according to social and architectural conceptions’, wrote Plischke. He saw the possibility of ‘humanising’ the new suburbs as the greatest opportunity for community planning. He thought that social amenities should be designed with the same care and skill as the houses themselves, and that these buildings would then form the heart of the community. He summed it up with the conviction that ‘if we build in such a way we shall find our age will produce an environment that will allow us to live in the way we really want to’.

The development of the Naenae civic centre allowed Plischke to test out these ideas. The buildings opened onto a plaza that loosely formed three squares of different character. The first, open to the street to invite the passing shopper; the second, informal with a courtyard with trees and sheltered areas for café tables; and the third, a formal square accommodating civic functions. A massive water tower was to be the central architectural feature.

The Tamaki housing scheme, designed in 1943-47 to house 30,000 people, was the most ambitious of the planning projects that Plischke tackled. It included a series of multiunit housing blocks close to the civic centre and surrounded by reserves, which provided areas away from the street for children to play. The civic centre had a strong axial geometry, creating visual connections with the railway station, the formal courtyards of the plaza and the open space of the parks beyond. The vertical tower in the plaza, a characteristic of several of Plischke’s schemes, here is free-standing and, like the squares, makes reference to the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Plischke’s favoured example of a well-designed civic centre.

While the ideas underlying the Tamaki project were indirectly realised as the suburbs of Glen Innes and Point England, little more than Plischke’s street plans came to fruition. The Mt Roskill community centre, designed in 1944-46, demonstrates Plischke’s increasing interest in providing community focus to his designs, and promoted shared community facilities in the form of gymnasium, library and halls, schools, Plunket and kindergartens.

The Naenae civic centre was the closest project built to Plischke’s plans. Many, such as the Mt Roskill and Otangarei community centres, were never constructed. When Plischke discussed the finished Naenae centre years later he expressed regret that none of the trees featured in his designs had been planted.

Greg Bowron, Manager—Heritage, Housing New Zealand

 DESIGNED AND LIVED IN: PLISCHKE’S HOUSES

If Ernst Plischke had some difficulty fitting into the broader society upon his arrival in Wellington in 1939, he was fortunate to find a supportive community in the educated elite and other immigrants. Before long many of his friends were asking him to design homes for them. His first project was the Frankl House (1939-40) in Christchurch, which was followed by notable commissions, mainly in the Wellington region.

‘I tried to break up the primitive box shape and get a sculptural quality into buildings,’ wrote Plischke in 1969, looking back on his early house designs in New Zealand. ‘I wanted to achieve free spaces and shapes, which transcended any feeling of heaviness and monumentality. A free penetration of form and space [which] lead to a rich three dimensional concept of architecture… I consider the aim to be to achieve a synthesis of the conception of space and sculptural quality. Each of these two components must be evolved out of the function and the construction of a building.’

Plischke’s buildings explore the tension between space/function and sculptural quality/construction. ‘Only this tension makes a building alive,’ he wrote. ‘Only the fulfilment of the creative law of tension gives modern architecture the possibility of overcoming monotony…’

Many of Plischke’s houses in Wellington are considered, both here and in Austria, as key designs in his oeuvre. As well as the Sutch-Smith House, other outstanding buildings include one of his first New Zealand commissions, the Kahn House (1940-41) on a Ngaio hilltop, about which he wrote: ‘In place of the conventional French windows I have tried, as far as I am aware, for the first time in New Zealand, to detail a sliding door, which can withstand the strong winds and rain of Wellington.’ Writing of the Kahn House living room in Arts Year Book No. 4 (1948), Howard Wadman observed: ‘Mr Plishke has made the owners at home in a different world. The difference is not merely one of "taste" but of total consciousness. A different kind of life can be lived in this room, and a more liberated personality developed in it.’ Built in 1948-54 and renovated in 1970-72 the Lang House, in Karori, reflects the influence of Anna Plischke: the house opens out onto a garden area which she designed.

Plischke worked on around sixty house designs during his years in this country, of which fifty were built. Virtually all of these buildings are still standing today, although some have been modified considerably. Plischke’s domestic designs reflect both his vision of architecture – shaped in Europe during the 1920s and 30s – while at the same time accommodating, as he himself stated, ‘the various temperaments of the clients and the different conditions’.

‘Plischke’s buildings are important,’ writes architect Ian Athfield, ‘because they were intelligently articulated compared with many others at the time… I think he worried his contemporaries – the buildings simplified many of the things that were happening at the time.’

THE SUTCH-SMITH HOUSE: ‘A TOUCHSTONE IN OUR ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE’

High on a hilltop above Brooklyn, the site is not one that everyone would have chosen. Yet its very difficulties have given it its character. The house has been so moulded to its site that it seems part of it; seems to grow out of it, rather in the way that Italian houses do and most New Zealand houses do not. Peter McIntyre, Evening Post, 1959

The boomerang-shaped Sutch-Smith House (1953-56), which is sited on a Brooklyn hilltop in Wellington, is Ernst Plischke’s greatest domestic building in New Zealand. Constructed over a period of three years, it is built on three levels following the contours of the hillside. In a manner typical of Plischke, there are no steps between indoor and outdoor areas – manifesting the kind of ‘indoor-outdoor flow’ which has preoccupied architects in recent decades.

Rather than offering to pay Plischke a percentage of the building cost, as is usual practice, William Sutch and his wife Shirley Smith agreed to pay the architect a wage for the time spent planning and overseeing the construction, encouraging him to take whatever time necessary to create a building of the highest aesthetic quality – a house that reflected his ideals and aspirations.

Much discussed in the Wellington media at the time of its completion, the Sutch-Smith House appeared in Nikolaus Pevsner’s ‘Architecture of the Commonwealth’ issue of the international journal Architecture Review in October 1959. Since then, the building has been reproduced in every major publication about Plischke and is featured in Peter Shaw’s A History of New Zealand Architecture where the long, low profile of the house is said to be ‘as alarmingly Modern today as it was in 1958’. By the late 1990s the house had fallen into disrepair and a major restoration project was embarked upon with Alistair Luke, of architectural firm Jasmax, overseeing the reconstruction of damaged parts of the building and the overall restoration of the house, down to the smallest detail. The refurbished Sutch-Smith House won the New Zealand Institute of Architects Award for Enduring Architecture 2004. The jury’s citation stated:

"This house is one of the best early examples of International Modernism in New Zealand. Built of timber framing on a steep site in Wellington, the house is a clean-lined horizontal sweep of glazing, capped by a flat roof and cantilevered overhangs. A sheltered, sunny courtyard is carved out of the hill behind and paved in a stone which continues through the glazed entry gallery and separates the living and sleeping pavilions.

The flight of cantilevered timber stairs, glass cabinets, stone paving and timber-veneer walls are composed in a balanced ensemble to deliver a richness in both living and architecture. Its faithful recent renovation remains a testament to Plischke’s belief that good architecture should not date and ensures the house remains a touchstone in our architectural heritage."

MASSEY HOUSE

If I had to single out one particular major building as the best, it would still be the work of a private architect, Massey House at Wellington. What impressed me so much there is the very sensitive and excellently executed interior details. Nikolaus Pevsner, visiting New Zealand in 1958

At the time that Massey House was being built, from 1951-57, the Wellington skyline was without any significant modern highrise development. In early photographs of the building it appears like an oasis of modernism in a staid and unadventurous urban landscape. Designed to accommodate the Dairy and Meat Marketing Board head office, the building – which straddles Lambton Quay and The Terrace – was Plischke’s largest New Zealand commission. While stylistically radical, the building was, in Plischke’s mind, essentially practical, its purpose ‘utilitarian, to provide an efficient housing of administrative offices, but yet have an elegance of form and colour’.

‘Even the Prime Minister, Keith Holyoake, was enthusiastic about the building,’ Linda Tyler has observed. ‘In his opening speech, after he had reminded everyone that meat and dairy exports paid for every second car in New Zealand and the petrol to run them as well as fifty per cent of machinery, locomotives and refrigerators, he went on to say… "This building has added something worthwhile and spectacular to Wellington's skyline and is a symbol of the economic importance and the vast proportions of our primary industry".’ Of the structure itself, Tyler writes:

"The basic principle underlying this architectural form was a clear differentiation between the carrying parts (the columns) and the non-carrying enclosing walls. The four round columns are a prominent feature of the building, and are white and freestanding, independent of the glass skin which is stretched across the front and back of the building."

The retail space on the right of the entrance was originally intended, in keeping with various ideas of modernist style, to be an automobile showroom but when no such dealership was interested, the premises were leased to Parsons Bookshop and the mezzanine floor functioned as a coffee shop. Architect Tommy Honey has described the premises as one of ‘New Zealand’s progressive and enduring shop interiors’. A kidney-shaped display table, which Plischke designed, is still operational in the shop today. For a while, Massey House was a symbol of modernity in Wellington, frequently appearing in the background of women’s fashion advertisements.

In 1963 Massey House was hailed in The Dominion by writer George Porter as ‘still the best-designed office building in the city. It illustrates not only his skill as a designer but also his overall skill as an architect… It is not aggressive, but quiet, dignified and simple. With the loving care of a true architect, he has lavished thought on every detail… Massey House has a positive and human quality that will endure.’ Despite the fact it is now hemmed in with buildings of a similar height, Massey House remains a landmark in New Zealand architecture.

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE: ‘SOME ABIDING PLACE’

Ernst Plischke was a passionate advocate of modernist church architecture, melding the latest design ideas with the spirituality he had experienced as a child at school in the medieval and baroque monastery at Klosterneuberg. Commissioned by a variety of religious denominations, the churches he designed in New Zealand were, as architectural historian Linda Tyler writes, ‘acclaimed for their simplicity, versatility and modernity. The first of these was a Methodist ecumenical community centre, wooden-framed and finished in plaster, in Khandallah, which was designed in 1948.’

The later churches – the Catholic church of St Mary’s at Taihape (1951-52) and St Martin’s Presbyterian Church, Christchurch (1953-56) – were remarkable for their combination of plain, traditional exterior finishing with unconventional interior effects. In the Taihape and Christchurch churches, not only did Plischke design the coloured windows, but also the lightfittings: the play of light, from whatever source, was integral to the architectural experience.

Peter Shaw, in his book A History of New Zealand Architecture, cites Plischke’s Church of St Mary’s – ‘where he adopted an appropriately basilican plan for an imposing concrete church’ – as an example of innovation and the beginning of a new spirit in church design. Plischke himself described the building as ‘Tuscan’ in spirit and based on ‘the classical Catholic tradition of thirteenth century Italy’. Plischke decried the tendency among New Zealand architects to design churches with inverted ‘V’ roofs. He summarised the goals of the church designer as being ‘to master the material realities with which the architect is dealing in order to create: "something ideal, something beyond the fact, some abiding place".’

Among the other commissions Plischke carried out in New Zealand was the Tasman Memorial. Located on a hilltop in the Abel Tasman National Park, the memorial was commissioned for the three hundredth anniversary of the visit of the Dutch commander who anchored off the New Zealand coast on 19 December 1642. Plischke’s design was a tall, minimalist slab of white stone with a stone table nearby bearing an inscription. Although the table has been modified, the monument still stands today. Plischke also did preliminary work on a memorial to the Prime Minister which was never made – a drawing showing his initial plans is included in this exhibition.

CASHMERE METHODIST CHURCH AND COMMUNITY CENTRE

‘An unqualified success not only for the clients but for the architect, the Cashmere Community Centre remains one of the most important buildings that Plischke was involved in designing in his twenty-four years in New Zealand. As an ‘enemy alien’ who found it difficult adjusting to New Zealand life, Plischke found complete acceptance and understanding in the group who were spearheading the movement for a community centre. He felt warmly supported by Joan and Bruce Cochran in particular who advocated for design decisions which were radical and progressive for the time. His involvement with the project was one of the happiest commissions of his career, indeed the project became the benchmark by which he judged working for other community groups when he returned to Austria.

The abiding modernist principle underlying the design of the hall is flexibility, as it was to be used as a kindergarten, theatre and library as well as for Sunday worship. The centre cost 12,000 pounds and attracted considerable media attention with seven openings to commemorate each of its many functions, and T. S. Eliot was invited to contribute a poem to be printed in the programme of events.’

Linda Tyler, architectural historian, in The Onslow Historian, 2003

‘The Cashmere Community Centre opened in 1952 and was an important landmark. The dominant building style in Cashmere Avenue, indeed in most suburban parts of the city, is one and two-storey timber buildings with weatherboard cladding and corrugated iron on pitched roofs; fences, trees and gardens contribute to the domestic character. The Centre proclaimed itself as different: it was built four-square up to the street boundary, with no fence or garden; the main materials were whitepainted stucco and glass, and it had a flat roof hidden behind a low parapet.

Perhaps most importantly, the building was a bold attempt to integrate the religious and social life of a new community. The Cashmere Community Centre was never to be a church in the conventional understanding of the word. From its conception, the idea of church and community together drove its design. After 1981, when the congregation had diminished and amalgamated with the Ngaio Union Church, it was used as a hall for the Cashmere Avenue School, a much-loved home for Khandallah Arts as a theatre, and for Deirdre Tarrant’s school of dance.

The demise of this proud place came about with the discovery in 2001 of extensive rot in the timber framing. If the Centre had been built of concrete as originally proposed (post-war building restrictions meant that concrete could not be used), it may well have been assessed as an earthquake risk by the 1990s, but it would not have rotted. Moisture found its way into the wall cavities and led to the rotting of the timber framing. To some extent, it was the architectural vision that worked against the building over time. The design stretched the capacity of the materials and technology of the 1950s and demanded a high level of maintenance and careful monitoring.’

Chris Cochran, conservation architect, in The Onslow Historian, 2003

Cashmere Community Centre was demolished on 17 January 2002.