Launch of Gerald Melling’s new book, on the Architecture of Disaster.
Personal experiences from the 2006 Aceh tsunami and the attempts to rebuild.
5.30 drinks, 6.00 talk, LT1 School of Architecture

Thursday 25 February 2010, 12.30pm
Adam Auditorium, City Gallery

An illustrated lecture on the WCC social housing blocks in Wellington currently undergoing a major upgrade. These 13 blocks were part of a larger urban renewal project beginning in the 1960s, in which the
Architectural Centre and many of Bill Toomath’s contemporaries were significantly involved. Art historian Ann McEwan has been engaged in the heritage assessment of these buildings, and will provide a 40minute pictorial talk on their historical background, the details of the current project, and the way present-day social housing agenda still resonates with Toomath and his contemporaries’ social and moral agenda for architecture.

This event is NZIA accredited, 10 points

Morals of the Modern: Changing Values of Modern Architecture
6pm, Thu 28 January 2010
Adam Auditorium at City Gallery, Civic Square, Wellington
Sam Kebbell will chair a roundtable panel featuring Julia Gatley, Bill Toomath, and Gerald Melling.

This discussion considers the changes in moral outlook throughout Bill Toomath’s career. Have the moral pursuits of post WWII modern architecture been exhausted? Surrendered? Superseded? Or simply forgotten? What are the predominant values of contemporary architecture? What is at stake now? If architecture captures a societies’ values, then what do we value? What should we value?

Apologies for the very very late notice … but tonight the always charming Daniele Abreu e Lima will be giving a lecture on Brasilia. Read the rest of this entry »

If you wanted to see the latest Pecha Kucha night in Wellington, then : apologies, because you’ve just missed it. I presume that you know what I’m on about? If not, then go here and discover all about it. A global phenomenom by now, running periodically in 248 cities now, it was Wellington’s turn tonight (and a mix of San Jose, Maastrict, Norrkoping, Orange County, San Diego, Aalen, Columbia and Denver tomorrow night, and Beirut, Charleston, Ghent and Nelson the next night). That’s possibly the only thing that Beirut, Charleston, Ghent and Nelson have in common. Yes, they have PK in Nelson now - apparently even in Hamilton. There truly are no limits now.

But tonight was special - of course - because it was in Wellington. Pecha Kucha, known for its egaliterian treatment of all and sundry, with 20 seconds for each of 20 slides, treats every one and every image the same. The line-up tonight was Read the rest of this entry »

Fantastic Aussie Landscape and Spatial supremos, for one night only in a double bill in Wellington. Don’t miss this. Bought to you by Victoria University as part of Crit Week, at 6.00pm in LT1 at the School of Architecture