The Architectural Centre Inc

Category: RANTING

  • Mock Deco

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    Following on from my previous comments on the great work of the Art Deco Trust in Napier, its also worth looking at the efforts, some good, some bad, of architects and others who have tried to replicate the art deco look in that city. There were 3 good heritage buildings knocked down, with two of…

  • Rongotai Revived – a fisheyed view…

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    I have come to this a little late, as it has already been the subject of about 30 or so comments over on Eye of the Fish, and I did think that perhaps I wouldn’t bother posting anything on it given the stirling job they usually do over there. Then I read the post. Disappointingly,…

  • Control by Lollipop: Pavlov’s Dogs in Wellington

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    If you’re lucky (or unlucky depending on how you see it) you might be offered a lollipop by a WCC worker for obediently waiting for the lights at the Ghuznee/Cuba St intersection before crossing the road. There’s nothing quite like being greeted by a patronising lollipop and a “Congratulations for crossing the road legally.”

  • Urban petitions (or the things we care about)…

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    Yay for participatory democracy… Obviously, the demise of our green recycling bins matter, with almost 10 000 signatures already on the Council hosted ePetition (how ick is that particular moniker?), which doesn’t close until May 13. This was one issue that spread like a virus through the pc’s of most Wellingtonians some weeks ago. I am…

  • Wellington: Cycle-friendly City – yeah right

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    The ambitions of our council are admirable – a cyclist and pedestrian friendly city – but this is maybe a situation of the “Devil being in the Detail.”   A case in point could be Mt Vic tunnel.  Built in 1930-1931, it is a key part of Wellington’s transport route, and one of the few…

  • An incredible hulk?

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    though I hate to be a conservative stickler, does anyone else see a similarity here? Jakob + MacFarlane project for the docks of Paris (click here for more)

  • The architecture of the automobile

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    OK, so we have already discussed cars on this site, but that was regarding the ever-expanding girth of both us, and the automotive metal which we wrap around ourselves before hurtling through the landscape at great speed (OK, much less speed through the cityscape…). But what about the relationship between architecture, and the car itself…? Those…

  • Bad Taste: the horror inside NZ houses

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    The culinary seems to be passé, with both the Arch Centre and the FishEye seeing fit to blog on food and design in recent days. Today though it’s bad taste, rather than taste, which appears to be de rigor. Peter Jackson’s 1987 cult classic, Bad Taste, while being “purely vulgar trash,” “brain splattering,” and “repulsive…

  • Is Nutrition the Answer to Everything?

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    Riding my bike into work this morning, the regular squeeze between car and kerb was suggesting immaterialisation would be my only option. Bloody SUVs. Why do they make cars so wide these days? Easy you say – because we are wider.

  • Electric Cars – are they better than Petrol?

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    The car has arguably been both the best and the worst invention of the last 100 or so years. While it has allowed our cities to expand, our countries to patrol far off frontiers, and granting untold personal freedom to people around the world, it has also mostly ruined all those said cities with traffic…