Category: News

  • Michael Graves – PoMo gone to the grave

    Too soon for bad-taste comments? Sorry Michael – I never knew you at all, but with a name like Graves you’ve probably had those jokes all your life. A life which has just ended – yes, sadly, the world’s greatest Post-Modern architect has, like the architectural style that he helped spawn, passed away. Far be…

  • Bill Toomath

    Bill Toomath passed away today. He will be hugely, sadly missed.

  • The Public Love Tunnels

    If there is one thing that the public love, it is being let in to a secret underground space, to go boldly where no one has gone before… And last weekend, Wellington was allowed to venture into the giant slice through the earth that the NZTA call the Memorial Park underpass. At present it is…

  • Underpass update

    NZTA continues digging the underpass tunnel below the future Memorial Park: pictures enclosed. The route through is now almost complete from end to end, open for the first time ever, direct from Taranaki St right through to the Basin. It is a busy worksite, clogged full of diggers, excavators, soil-nailers, trucks, and still: an awful…

  • Holy Trinity

    At last the Anglican church in Christchurch appears to be speaking the same language as the people. Finally, two years after the earthquakes, the Bishop Victoria Matthews has decided to approach the question of a replacement cathedral in a manner that does, to some extent, involve the People. A choice range of three possible options…

  • Memorial Park

    The Prime Minister has announced today that the Memorial Park is to be a Park, and not a motorway. Hooray for common sense, good taste, sensible planning, appropriate responses, and joined up thinking. There has evidently been a fair bit of quiet contemplative thought going on

  • Olympics

    If fully a sixth of the world saw the opening spectacular, then there is a good chance that one building is going to stick in people’s minds about this Olympics – the grand central stadium. Looking resplendent on opening night with a green and pleasant Hobbiton at its core, giant inflatable brick chimneys, five glowing…

  • The theoretical side of academia

    At Arch Centre, we’re always looking out for ways to making you think about Architecture. Some people practice architecture, others build architecture, while most people just get on with living in it. A select few go about photographing architecture, while another select crowd attempt to teach architecture. Everyone wants a slice of this very delectable…

  • RIP Peter Beaven

    We’ve just heard the sad news that Peter Beaven passed away last night. Beaven came to speak to the Arch Centre last year, and we felt privileged at the time to be present. Not only were we amazed at the power of recollection of this 86 year old architectural power house, able to skillfully recall…

  • Christchurch Cathedral to be demolished?!

    Breaking news – and something that I can’t quite believe they would do, but the Bishop of Christchurch has announced today that the Anglican Church plans to completely demolish the Cathedral in Christchurch. Cantabrians, and no doubt others, are in total shock. There is, as yet, no confirmation as to whether it will ever be…