NZIA Gold Medal Quotation
Jack Manning has demonstrated his architectural capability in constant method, however by no means in repetitive kind, in a profession stretching over half a century. All through that profession, which acquired an early stimulus within the workplace of Group Architects, Jack’s competence has been matched by his design confidence. He has not been deterred by the challenges of scale or divergent typologies: his notable work ranges from his family home, constructed when he was a younger architect, to the Majestic Centre, the Wellington workplace tower he designed 30 years later.
In a occupation that accommodates numerous proficiencies, Jack has at all times been, in essence, a designer. As he got here from a modest background, didn’t possess a ready-made community of potential purchasers and, by his personal admission, just isn’t naturally inclined to business exercise, his development has been primarily based on the realisation of his design expertise. Greater than that, Jack has a thorough-going appreciation of how buildings are put collectively. On this respect, he epitomises the virtues and values of his technology of architects, a technology for whom the artwork of drawing was inseparable from the craft of making.
Jack’s reserve and disinterest in self-promotion shouldn’t disguise his dedication. He has at all times aimed excessive, and adopted his personal trajectory; his response, when alternatives offered themselves, was by no means ‘why’, however at all times ‘why not’. If Mies van der Rohe may do a curtain wall constructing in New York Metropolis, then why couldn’t he himself do one in Auckland? Fifty years on, the AMP Constructing Jack designed when he was with Thorpe Cutter Pickmere & Douglas continues to be a swish presence on the nook of Queen and Victoria Streets.
Innovation and adaptableness have been fixed options of Jack’s structure. In New Zealand, ambition often outstrips budgets, however from the beginning of his profession, Jack has refused to let monetary constraints handicap architectural expression or experiment. The more-from-less buildings he designed on the Auckland Lecturers Coaching School campus transcended the constraints of native circumstances and possibly confounded modern expectations. Twenty years later, in apply with David Mitchell, he married boldness and delight on the College of Auckland Music Faculty, a uncommon native incidence of profitable post-modernism.
Now in his eighties, Jack continues to apply, most latterly on a collection of homes as singular as ever, and his evident enjoyment of design is a certain signal that he selected the best vocation. Assured of his personal capability, he has been a mentor to lots of the architects with whom he has labored. Extensively learn, nicely knowledgeable, possessing agency opinions however alive to new concepts, Jack is a superb consultant of the occupation to which he has devoted himself, and a most worthy recipient of the New Zealand Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal.
John Walsh (JW): Let’s begin at the start, Jack. You’re an Aucklander?
Jack Manning (JM): I’m, a North Shore boy. I grew up in Devonport and Takapuna, primarily. My household life was very suburban. It’s unusual however there was little interest in any of the humanities. My mom was a pianist and he or she performed organ within the church choir however aside from that there was little interest in literature, portray or something like that. So there weren’t loads of issues that moved me into one thing like structure, and it was little bit of a toss-up as to what I did once I completed secondary faculty.
The place did you go to excessive faculty?
JM: I went to St Peter’s School in Newmarket. I had the concept that I would do both journalism or engineering. Then, over the past faculty holidays earlier than going to college – I’d at all times been fairly good at sketching – I assumed possibly I ought to attempt structure. There was an architect who lived fairly shut by in Takapuna and he regarded as if he was doing okay. So, that’s what I did. I went and enrolled in structure. I used to be in a minority of individuals straight from faculty as a result of many of the class had been rehab college students who had been within the Armed Forces. This was in 1946.
I had no concept what structure was about. The primary yr was primarily studying to do handbook drawings, with T-squares and so forth. It wasn’t an excessive amount of of an issue. The second yr I used to be actually floundering and Dick Toy wasn’t terribly impressed with me, I may see that. Anyhow, I needed to re-do second yr and in the direction of the top of the second yr I may see that Toy was pondering I wasn’t a whole write off. Within the third yr, with Vernon Brown, I began to really feel I knew what I used to be doing.
I didn’t have a really robust relationship with Toy however I may join with Vernon Brown fairly nicely. I’ve acquired a small part of a Japanese temple that he gave me. He should have nearly dismantled the entire temple to have had all of the chunks at hand out to individuals. In that yr I gained the Memorial Prize – it was the third yr artwork prize.
Within the fourth yr we had Peter Middleton and Boland from England who had simply arrived. The primary venture that we needed to do, everyone was failed, and there was just about a riot. The Faculty at the moment was going by a little bit of ferment. Invoice Wilson and a few others, who had been just a few years forward, had been arguing loads with the employees about what trendy structure was. On the time the Faculty was very uninteresting and it didn’t appear to recognise what was taking place abroad. Dick Hobin was one of many ringleaders of our mini revolt. We ended up speaking to the dean, Maidment I believe it was…
My work on the time was fairly wild. I used to be undisciplined, and my work was extremely immature. I needed to repeat a time period to get by fourth yr, which I did. After leaving the Faculty I went to the Auckland Schooling Board. I used to be there for a few years. I felt that I wanted to seek out out a bit of bit about actual constructing.
JW: Did you get to do actual constructing with the Schooling Board?
JM: Effectively, you bought to do actual element. It was roughly inventory timber joinery and inventory working drawings. There was completely nothing to be gained by way of design expertise, but it surely did allow me to get my ft on my floor with regards to the practicalities of constructing. Then round 1953 or ’54 I went to work for The Group for about 18 months as a draftsman.
It was nice. I didn’t get to design a factor. Invoice Wilson and Ivan Juriss and Jim Hackshaw all did their very own work, and did their very own working drawings as nicely. So I didn’t work on any of the masterpieces of the interval, however the workplace was completely vibrant. Invoice Wilson, particularly, was a whole worldwide man in a manner. He was into literature, music and drama – all the things. You’d be discussing Le Corbusier, Aalto, Japanese conventional structure, socialism. Every thing was up for dialogue. It was fairly electrical working there.
JW: Invoice Wilson should have been fairly a charismatic determine.
JM: He was extremely charismatic. He was a series smoker. I can get a picture of him standing surrounded in smoke as he talked. He would typically be nicely behind in getting his jobs out, after which he’d work till three o’clock within the morning and are available within the subsequent day together with his eyes virtually closed. He was fairly a tremendous man. It’s simply such a pity that he died so younger – I believe
he was about 46 – as a result of New Zealand structure may have fortunately executed with one other 20 years of his presence.
JW: Why did you permit The Group?
JM: Effectively, they ran out of labor. So I went to Thorpe, Cutter, Pickmere and Douglas. I labored for some time on the Manukau drainage plant buildings after which alongside got here the AMP constructing on Victoria Avenue, which I did. Mick Cutter was the associate in cost however more often than not he was instructing up on the college so he didn’t draw something. Lever Home and the Seagram Constructing had been constructed just lately and had been cheap kinds of mannequin for what we did at AMP, which wasn’t a free standing tower, it was only a full website. You solely had two frontages for a tower. It was in all probability one of many first curtain wall buildings within the metropolis, and with the robust vertical ribs and the extent of glass, I believe it’s nonetheless fairly a vital-looking constructing.
JW: Was it troublesome to get the shopper to conform to what was a really trendy constructing?
JM: I wasn’t concerned within the precise promoting of it to the AMP officers, however we acquired a mannequin made. It was a dreadful mannequin, truly. It was made with little strips of metal glued to celluloid sides but it surely simply regarded actually clunky. I’m shocked that AMP purchased it however they did.
JW: Do you just like the Seagram Constructing?
JM: Sure I do. What it has executed, although, is spawned an enormous variety of comparable buildings, and the factor about it’s that for those who’re going to be a minimalist it’s acquired to be fairly pure and fairly excellent. Mies was ready to do this, however the buildings that each American metropolis now has – they’ve all acquired two or three huge Miesian buildings – they’re all only a bit boring, I’m afraid.
JW: What occurred after Thorpe Cutter Pickmere and Douglas?
JM: I left them to go to Auckland Metropolis Council as a result of that gave the impression to be, on the time, top-of-the-line locations to work in Auckland. Tim Donald was the chief architect. Ewan Wainscott was deputy and there have been a dozen architects on the employees as nicely – John Goldwater was there. It had a superb status as a spot to work so I went there. I used to be doing flats in Freemans Bay for some time after which ended up engaged on the brand new metropolis library which was proposed for the location it now occupies. Ewan Wainscott was answerable for the design and I used to be fairly decided that we weren’t going to finish up with a supermarket-type library which was all the fashion in America on the time. I used to be aiming for one thing a bit extra on the European mannequin that Aalto had been doing.
I did the sketch drawings for the issues. This was the top of ’63, after which the venture was mothballed as a result of there was an issue concerning the website.
So, anyhow, I went again to Thorpe Cutter Pickmere and Douglas to do a redevelopment of Ardmore Lecturers’ School which by no means went forward. Whereas I used to be there the choice was made to show Auckland Lecturers’ School, which was a main instructing school, into each a secondary and first instructing school one on the identical website. So there was a brand new main constructing, a brand new secondary constructing, a instructing constructing, a gymnasium for every, a library to be shared between the 2 and customary rooms for the scholars. I used to be the architect answerable for the venture. David Mitchell had come to work on the agency and he was one other senior architect on it, and there have been an entire lot of graduates straight out of structure faculty, individuals like Peter Sargisson, Neil Simmons and Peter Hill.
It was a extremely full of life group and the buildings that resulted from it had been fairly hanging. They had been pretty merely constructed. There was a good quantity of uncooked concrete and we used loads of cement panels as cladding, pre-coated with polyurethane. This was typically in dazzling whites and first colors. There have been some fairly startling issues concerning the buildings that had been actually fairly vibrant and important.
JW: Have been you concerned within the grasp planning of that website?
JM: Sure, it’s an exquisite website. That was a really pleasing expertise, working with all these youthful guys from the college. I left Thorpe, Cutter, Pickmere and Douglas and went to hitch Peter Hill in Parnell. He had began his personal apply there and was doing work for Les Harvey in redeveloping Parnell, was doing fairly just a few Kentucky Fried Hen retailers on the similar time. I went there as a result of Thorpe Cutter had realised I wasn’t the businessman that they had been actually on the lookout for. My promotion prospects weren’t terribly good in order that was why I made a decision to go away. I didn’t have loads of work at the beginning however I acquired some Schooling Division work at Epsom Ladies’ Grammar Faculty and later Orewa School.
JW: So that you had been a designer not a businessman?
JM: I’ve by no means been a businessman. I’ve by no means been a lot of a technocrat, both. I take detailing fairly severely. I spend loads of time attempting to work issues out that different individuals may know off-hand, however I’m very a lot the designer kind relatively than the businessman kind.
JW: What yr are we in now, Jack?
JM: About 1975 or so. Shortly after I began with Peter Hill, David Mitchell got here and joined us. He was doing his well-known first home for the Gibbs and so forth. I used to be doing a music suite, drama suite and senior women’ frequent room at Epsom Ladies’ Grammar on fairly a big website fronting onto Gillies Avenue. These had been very home buildings, linked by a coated manner. Historical past later caught up with Epsom Ladies’ Grammar and the college’s roll jumped alarmingly and the location simply couldn’t tolerate low density improvement. The buildings I had designed ended up being changed by multi-storey classroom blocks.
Then we acquired the Music Faculty constructing on the College of Auckland. This was a joint effort by David Mitchell and myself. It wasn’t the simplest of issues as a result of the college had present premises in Princes Avenue in a lovely outdated constructing that kind of rambled all over. There have been music rooms scattered round, and the music can be clashing on a regular basis. They simply put up with it – there’d be pianos and cellos all doing various things. However the Faculty preferred the openness of the constructing and the very last thing they needed was to finish up with an impersonal kind of constructing, with all the things air-conditioned.
David and I had precisely the identical perspective to the brand new constructing, but it surely wasn’t going to be all that straightforward on the location. For a begin, the location was very small, however the true downside was the horrendous noise from Symonds Avenue. It was about 80 decibels on the boundary. We had Harold Marshall as our acoustic guide, and with out him we simply wouldn’t have gotten anyplace. We mentioned we simply need to construct a stable barrier on the road, and that’s why there’s not a window in that wall. And to make it amenable to the general public it wanted to be formed in each plan and elevation. However as soon as we had the wall we had a reasonably quiet courtyard inside and the music employees had been proud of the concept that there can be music interference to an affordable extent between room to room. We had been capable of obtain this by extending the partitions of small music rooms and research out to present a bit of barrier on either side. Additionally, by adjusting the openings that you just had from the room to the skin, you can create a extra circuitous path for the sound to journey.
JW: What do you consider the Music Faculty now?
JM: I believe it’s a stunning, sensual constructing. There are just a few touches of post-modernism in it – if there’d been much more we may have been embarrassed about it later. There are so few, actually, that folks don’t put it within the post-modern class.
JW: You had been usually cautious together with your post-modern indulgence?
JM: I believe we had been fortunate that loads of the post-modernist stuff we had been designing by no means acquired constructed. At first we thought post-modernism was good as a result of it was recent and simply so liberating, however I believe it was liberating within the mistaken route one way or the other. All of the theatrics and the historicism of post-modernism, and the irony… I imply, structure is an artwork. You’ve acquired to
be very cautious with irony hooked up to artwork. It simply demeans it.
JW: What do you consider the vogue that emerged within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s for a neo-modernist form of structure – minimalist, very slick, very clear, typically very costly, and extremely reliant on stunning supplies.
JM: I’m proud of any kind of structure so long as it’s convincing and works. As I mentioned, you’ve acquired to be fairly pure and intensely delicate to make minimalism work in addition to Mies did. I believe Australian, New Zealand and American home structure have all acquired the identical similarities nowadays. The battle for contemporary structure is nicely and really over. Fashionable structure has gained, and I believe the common shopper nowadays is on the lookout for one thing radical. They really need this kind of stuff now. It’s the norm. Fashionable structure is a trend like every of the opposite fashions.
JW: After the Music Faculty did you and David keep working collectively?
JM: Sure, by this time David and I had moved into Excessive Avenue in Auckland. After the Music Faculty we acquired loads of work for builders. So far as I can bear in mind none of it truly acquired constructed, for which we had been pretty grateful. We did do a scheme for the Britomart Place space when there was a council competitors down there. This was executed with Rainbow Company – I don’t know what number of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} value of constructing there had been.
We had fashions manufactured from all these buildings and we had various different architects serving to –Noel Lane, Richard Avenue, I believe, Richard Priest. I don’t wish to demean Rainbow Company’s concepts for desirous to do it, it was the Council who put it out to tender. We didn’t win it, I neglect who did, however it will have been exhausting to take a look at it now if it had all been constructed. We might have reworked Auckland.
JW: And never essentially in a superb manner?
JM: Effectively, yeah. I used to be working at that stage with Evan Davies who was with Rainbow Company and later with Primac Holdings after they did the Majestic Constructing a bit of bit afterward, and he was an excellent man to work with. The Britomart venture was just about over-inflated. The Majestic Centre was a extremely good try by Primac to do a landmark constructing they usually had the idea that the realm the place they had been going to construct this constructing was going to turn into the centre of the Wellington enterprise district. It didn’t find yourself like that as a result of many of the different initiatives by no means went forward.
The Majestic did go forward, and it was fairly an unbelievable venture to work on. Evan Davies confirmed loads of religion in us, contemplating the largest constructing we’d executed earlier than was the Lecturers’ School redevelopment and the Music Faculty. However the Majestic Centre consisted of a retail podium and a tower which was the tallest in Wellington, by a bit of bit.
My very own feeling was that I needed to make this a contribution to the identification of the town, loads like among the New York skyscrapers. I used to be very concerned about getting a relationship between Willis Avenue and the constructing and so the rostrum is difficult up alongside the Willis Avenue boundary and the tower, which is about again from the highest of the triangle, has acquired the identical materials because the podium – kind of pink granite – and it faces and fronts onto that road. The entry to the tower is additional up in Boulcott Avenue however we additionally introduced in an atrium that got here in from Willis Avenue. It acquired you up
by the use of escalators to the tower lobby. The tower itself was topic to wind management issues and needed to be wind-tunnel examined to get approval from the town council.
Mainly, you wanted to get one thing like a round tower. It’s one of the best form for avoiding wind issues on the street beneath. The facet boundaries are set again from the boundary to the tower and we’ve acquired precast concrete panels with a window in every panel. Round on the western facet, there’s a curtain wall on a curve that fronts onto Boulcott Avenue and has an expansive view of the entire space. The highest of the tower has acquired a penthouse with a light-weight characteristic that’s fairly distinctive for the constructing. I’ve thought, on reflection that I’d do it in another way if I used to be doing it once more. It has a bit of little bit of an Artwork Deco really feel, and I’d in all probability end it off in another way these days.
JW: Have homes featured a lot in your profession?
JM: They’ve these days and I’ve actually loved doing homes. They’re small scale, issues occur shortly, and also you’ve started working with purchasers. I’ve been fortunate with purchasers. The purchasers for the homes I’ve executed have all been good individuals, very nice individuals who’ve labored with the concepts that I’ve put ahead and customarily been in settlement and completely supportive of issues I’ve executed.
JW: When did you exit in your personal?
JM: In all probability about 1990. I felt that I wanted to, simply to see how I’d go by myself. David and Julie Stout had been working collectively as a group at that stage so it labored out okay. There’s additionally an age factor. I used to be attending to an age the place I used to be beginning to assume I ought to retire. I haven’t.
JW: Why not?
JM: I don’t know. I’ve acquired a few alteration jobs which I’m doing in the meanwhile. Once they’re completed I would simply resolve that it’s time.
JW: Let’s discuss homes.
JM: My very own home was executed about the identical time that I used to be working for Auckland Metropolis Council. I completed it in 1960, however the homes I’ve executed for the reason that Majestic Centre… I did a home at Tauranga which I used to be very happy with. It was a big rural part, countryside rolling in the direction of the coast. It was a gently sloping website and it instantly had a steep ridge proper throughout the center of it.
My first concept for that home was that we’d truly run obliquely over the ridge and benefit from the dramatic prospects however the homeowners needed a extra non-public constructing, so it was set again from the ridge. We ended up with an L-shaped home. We tried numerous issues however the finances saved operating into issues, so theoretically it was a reasonably easy L-shape with a pitched roof sloping in the direction of the north and the west with a valley in between. The center of the L is principally full peak, single storied so you have got a excessive eating room/front room and so forth. It’s fairly dramatic in a manner due to the truth that the 2 flooring had been pretty open. I used double glazing across the high of the home underneath the roof to maintain the heat in, and I used to be fairly delighted in the best way the rear of the home and the 2 again faces of the L appear like the again of a grandstand. It labored out very properly ultimately. It was simpler to do than the sunny frontage on
the opposite facet.
The following job I did was the Cathcart Home at Glendowie. This was constructed by the proprietor who’s a builder. He took 10 years to do it, from the inception to the completion, and he constructed each little bit of it – concrete, roofing, tile work and all the things. It’s on a pleasant website overlooking Tamaki Basin, one again from the sting of the cliff. On the frontage was a low home that enabled him to miss it. It’s a protracted linear home with a barrel-vaulted roof.
JW: Do you see your self as an Auckland architect – an architect formed and influenced by this place?
JM: To an extent. One other home that I’ve simply completed is down in Christchurch and in a manner I really feel as if I’m colonising Christchurch as a result of it nonetheless strikes that the home has an Auckland really feel about it. You could have the chance and the encouragement to open the place up when the climate is nice. The lounge has doorways that slide again and the eating room has bi-folds which open out onto a decent-size deck, so the design presupposes the identical kind of outside residing that you just’d anticipate in Auckland.
JW: If you take a look at your profession, do you recognise fixed components or themes. Are there ideological anchors?
JM: That’s a tough query to reply. Straightforward query to ask. You understand, I really feel that an architect’s job is to principally design buildings which can be applicable to the dignity of the human situation. I do know this sounds a bit of bit pompous. I like my buildings to be simple and mainstream as to how they work. I’ve a reasonably trustworthy strategy to supplies. I don’t like the thought of doing manipulative buildings that attempt to impress. I’m not eager on buildings that fantasise what human life is all about. I are likely to attempt for a degree of realism.
JW: Clearly hasn’t stopped you designing some fairly virtuoso buildings, such because the Music Faculty and the Majestic Centre.
JM: You typically discover while you’re doing a design that you just come throughout one thing you weren’t anticipating. An possibility that’s fairly sudden comes up that basically strikes you as attention-grabbing and new. In structure you’ve acquired to maintain on shifting and doing issues freshly in any other case you might as nicely hand over. However while you do get one thing like a breakthrough it’s essential run with it and reinforce it as a lot as you can.
JW: And see the place it goes?
JM: Sure. I’ve at all times preferred to do work that’s has a bit of little bit of an edge to it. The very last thing you wish to do is issues which can be the apparent reply to each downside. I at all times prefer to go a bit of bit deeper than the kind of apparent in my work.
JW: Your home was clearly an exquisite alternative so that you can design a house for your loved ones. It has been your private home now for 50 years.
JM: It’s a lot second nature for me to be residing right here. I’m by no means going to promote the home. It means loads to my household as nicely. After all, it will not be doable to maintain it within the household once I go… I don’t assume there’s way more I can say about this home. I’ve actually loved residing right here. It’s a extremely peaceable place to return dwelling to each day.
JW: Within the late Nineteen Fifties, this was what new trendy structure regarded like in Auckland. A whole lot of its design rules had been shared by your modernist contemporaries.
JM: Sure, however I discover myself utilizing the identical kind of rules within the stuff I do nowadays. The window seat over there, I don’t know what number of window seats I’ve executed… It’s a manner of defining a perform. The choice is free-standing seating however it may be fairly good to narrate to a window seat and the outside by opening the window out.
JW: Has structure been the best profession for you, Jack?
JM: I can’t think about myself doing anything. I bear in mind Peter Middleton in fourth yr telling me he didn’t assume I had the persistence to be an architect, and he suggested me to go to artwork faculty. I believe that doggedness is without doubt one of the issues I’ve proven over the years.
JW: And so, the Gold Medal.
JM: Yeah I’ve acquired to say it was a shock – a superb shock. I didn’t assume anyone else had observed what I used to be doing.
JW: Clearly, they’ve. I do know that David Mitchell has at all times been extremely appreciative of your work, and of you.
JM: Effectively, it’s mutual. I believe David is without doubt one of the finest architects within the nation, for sure. At all times has been.
JW: Congratulations on the Gold Medal, Jack – I envy your life nicely lived.
