Media Release
August 1, 2006

Announcing Auckland Architecture Week – the Joy of Architecture

“Architecture is everywhere. With the design of buildings, urban and rural environments, and interiors, architects contribute skills, commitment and passion. The challenges, successes and failures of the past and future form the world we all share. This is the richness and joy of architecture. Get into Architecture.”

Pete Bossley, President of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects

Architectural sculptures constructed from cans of food; a Japanese architect renowned for his ultra skinny buildings and a Melbourne architect who is a “committed urbanite” will be the stars of Auckland Architecture Week from September 6 -12, 2006.

Architecture Week is an established event throughout the world which offers a host of activities relating to architecture taking place over a single week. Auckland Architecture Week, The Joy of Architecture, will celebrate the architecture, buildings and urban spaces in and around Auckland.

Organised by the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, the event aims to get architects, designers, urban planners and the public involved in celebrating the diversity and excitement of architecture. It will also be an opportunity for architects and the general public to learn more about their city and to become involved in its history and its future.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Auckland City Council, Auckland University, UNITEC, and the Historic Places Trust are among the community groups and organisations who will take part in the event.

Most of the events will take place in the Britomart area with all events (excluding the Waro Kishi lecture) open to the public and free of charge.

One of the most visual and entertaining events of the week long event will be Can Construct. A number of top architectural practices will compete to create giant installations or sculptures using thousands of cans of food. The public will be able to watch architects working on their installations and at the close of the exhibition, which will be held at The Britomart Pavilion, the cans will be donated to the Auckland City Mission.

There will be lectures and discussions at 1pm and 5pm each day in the Britomart Pavilion, followed by launches of exhibitions and books. Other events during Auckland Architecture Week will include site visits to significant Auckland buildings, ranging from historical to modern commercial buildings; heritage walks through Parnell and the University of Auckland campus, as well as a Pub tour of Historic Auckland Pubs; exhibitions of architectural work, of art by architects and architectural photography; panel discussions about art working with architecture, about sustainable architecture and urban issues; book launches; the Jasmax Film Festival; and a panel discussion organised by New Zealand Home & Entertaining magazine about The Next Housing Revolution, which will examine ways that current housing styles may change in the future.

Barcode will see over 100 Architectural students from the University of Auckland and AUT create bar installations, which will go live on September 8, in Britomart. Also on show will be an exhibition of Indigenous architecture, The Architecture of Brazil, and an architectural treasure hunt, organised by the Historic Places Trust, around the Auckland City Midtown area.

Keynote speakers at Auckland Architecture Week will be Japanese architect, Waro Kishi and Melbourne architect, Nonda Katsalidis (see Notes to Editors section below).

With something for everyone, both young and old, take the opportunity to experience the Joy of Architecture.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

- Waro Kishi first caught the attention of the international architectural world in 1992 with his elegant, award winning townhouse in Nipponbashi, a district of Osaka. The ultra slender house has a steel-frame structure and is four storeys high, 13 m deep, but only 2.5 m wide.

- Born in 1950, Kishi was educated at Kyoto University and opened his own office in Kyoto in 1981. Many of his buildings are located in the Kansai region, which includes Osaka, Kobe and Nara, as well as Kyoto. Kansai has many heritage buildings and therefore has stricter town planning and design rules than, for instance, Tokyo, where almost anything goes. A narrow frontage such as the one on the Nipponbashi house is common in heavily built-up districts in Kyoto and the discipline that is required to design buildings under such difficult conditions has helped to define Kishi’s work.

- Nonda Katsalidis is renowned for starting a trend for inner city living in Melbourne in the early 1990s with the Melbourne Terrace Development. Other leading projects he and his partner Karl Fender have designed include the Richmond silos project, the New Quay development in the Docklands (a significant project in the regeneration of Melbourne’s Dockland area) and their current major project, 90 storey Eureka Tower in Melbourne. The tower, the tallest residential buildings in the world, rises more than 300 metres above street level, has a façade of glass and aluminium and will contain 500 apartments. Construction began in 2001 on the Eureka Tower, which is south of the Yarra River in the Southbank precinct, and it is due to be completed this month (June). Katsalidis regards the Eureka Tower as the “pinnacle” of his career to date, and he intends to have a residence in the building.

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