The Green House, by Claude Megson, 1978

Any architect can make a fair fist of impressing with a rich and expensive palate. What architect Claude Megson was very good at was using fairly standard inexpensive materials to create spaces of almost inexpressible delight—the sort that’s sometimes hard to capture through a lens, but that you can feel as soon an you enter his spaces, and delight in even more as you live in them over many years and discover all their many intricacies: the way spaces flow into each other; the links created to the grounds and wider landscape; the vistas through, within (and without) the house …

On the market now, after many years, is the spatial wonderland he crafted forty years ago for the Phillips family of Glenfield: the ‘green house,’ as it was dubbed, for its colour (which now appears the very least of the colours used!).

Inserted into lush bush at the end of a cul-de-sac, this project employs a number of characteristic Megson elements. The base of the house is formed from concrete blocks,with interiors on six-half levels cascading down under an inclined glass roof. Enclosing this is a highly complex composition of “periscope” forms – arranged both vertically and horizontally - that recall the Rees Townhouses, but which are painted a lush green – hence the project being referred to as the “Green House”. Projecting out into the bush on the downhill side of the house is balcony composed as a cantilevered cage of steel pipe, a motif that would reappear in Megson’s own house.

The real estate site says:

Architecturally fabulous and with all the elements of a truly special home, this unique property was designed by the renowned architect Claude Megson and built to admire the nature of the magical Scenic Reserve setting.
    Our current owners bought this jewel in April 2000 recognising the beauty of the design, the exquisite location among native trees and the convenience of being at just 10 min drive [ahem – Ed.] to Auckland CBD.
    This fabulous property is set on a 1113m² (approx) section and features 3 bedrooms and 3 living areas on six-half levels cascading down under an inclined glass roof that spills light into and throughout the home.
    The attention to detail creates a home with a blend of quiet intimate rooms to dramatic areas under the vaulted ceiling, very different from what we are all used to see in the Market.
    To absorb the resulting arrangement of spaces, with a gentle division of activities suggested for each of these areas, the first time spectator must spend time roaming the home, revisiting rooms, to understand the feeling and the flavour of each area.
    The home is centred around the outdoor and indoor living areas, that inspires to entertain, to invite people to lounge on the open space; long lazy Sunday lunches or formal occasions would all be enhanced by this serene and very private environment.
    There are areas for reading, to retreat to, to reflect, to gather with friends and discuss matters of great importance, or to simply absorb the peace of the view of the beautiful Kelmar Scenic Reserve.
    Walking down the driveway and looking back to the home, you cannot help feeling inspired with Claude's creation; the current owners have lovingly looked after this home over the years but it is time to hand the mantle onto another owner who will thrive in this exceptional home.

The house has Open Homes this Saturday and Sunday.

Architect Claude Megson in his “green house” soon after completion.

 

Quote of the day: But isn’t this how every house should feel?

“Architect Dominic Glamuzina says [Megson’s original 1970’s house] invokes the feeling that one should have a cocktail in one’s hand at all times while wandering through it.”
- from an article reporting on an extension to Claude Megson’s Rees House  (part of this complex of townhouses)

More on the story and extension from the GlamuzinaPaterson website.

The Design, Build & Renovate trade publication featured it in April 2014, offering an interior pic showing the characteristic Megsonian diagonal relationship between kitchen and dining space:

[Top pic from the GlamuzinaPaterson website]

“I’m twice the architect you are!”

From a 2014 interview with Patrick Clifford, of Architectus:

Q: And what about the ideas around at the time and which teachers influenced your own thinking?
PC: There are particular memories that I certainly have of people from that time. We learnt drawing from Pat Hanley, who was a very helpful and incredibly encouraging teacher, and people like Fred Beckett, Dave Mitchell and Mike Austin, who were practising and working in a completely different way, and Claude Megson, who I did quite a lot of studio work with. There were visiting architects, like Marshall Cook, coming into the School and offering studio programmes.

ANZ: Are there any entertaining moments that stick in your mind?
PC: I can still vividly remember Claude Megson in the studio one day yelling out at Peter Bartlett, “I’m twice the architect you are!” Peter Bartlett was the distinguished teacher, academic and practitioner who designed the performing arts building at Auckland Grammar, amongst other things….
    The School of Architecture was an environment that had a lot more complexity than ‘you’re coming here to just be taught something about architecture’. There were complex personal relationships and views about what architecture should be and how it should be taught and so on. As a student, you have to navigate your way through that and, at some point, hopefully form a view yourself about what you think is important. My recollection of that time is that a lot of the teaching was fairly laissez faire; it didn’t offer a strong view. The strong view was that students should figure out, based on their own experience and understanding, how to make architecture. There were exceptions to that: people like Claude Megson, who said, “This is how I do it and, if you’re going to be in my studio, you need to do it this way”…

ANZ: Do you think that the laissez-faire attitude was possibly a good thing for your generation, in the sense that New Zealand had traditionally followed overseas styles, so perhaps a laissez-faire attitude was a way for new generations of architects to evolve with some different ideas based more in the New Zealand context?
PC: Maybe, but in the ’50s and ’60s some New Zealand architects had formed a view that modern architecture in New Zealand should be its own version: people like the [Architectural] Group and so on, who we tend to celebrate now but it wasn’t being taught about at Architecture School back then. It wasn’t like we were being educated in an environment that said, “Look, here’s what’s happened before”. It was rather more “you figure out your own path”.

ANZ: A little bit directionless, you mean?
PC: Well, it was a challenge for students to figure out how to approach this. But there was a balance with the Claude Megson approach of “do it this way”. So, as a student, there’s quite a lot of decisions to be made in terms of the ‘how’ – some of which, you probably don’t figure out what effect it had until a few years later

Full interview here: NZIA Gold Medal winner, Patrick Clifford

The New Romantics

From a 2012 interview with the now=late Peter Beaven, “taking us back in time to 1972 when new ideas about architecture were taking shape and exhibited at The Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt.”

…This interest in new shapes and styles first took visible form at The Dowse Art Gallery in Lower Hutt in 1972. An architectural exhibition which the Dowse labelled The New Romantics, included the work of Ian Athfield, Roger Walker, Claude Megson, John Scott and myself. There were, by then, already salient differences among us. For a small country, the architects featured in the exhibition were a pretty excellent assembly, developing as a group several clear, broad paths, which could have taken New Zealand architecture beyond modernism into rich new fields of our own….
    Inevitably, the ‘new romantic’ movement never really flowered. Neither John Scott nor Claude Megson lived long enough to extend their great formal skills. Ian Athfield and Roger Walker each developed large practices. In the running of their practices, their early enthusiasm and originality necessarily drained away to some extent. Each now inhabits a different world from the world that the Dowse exhibition seemed to be ushering in.
    It is far harder today for a young architect to make such an individual impression. The fashion for following the favoured styles of the day has become uniform throughout the world, driven of course by the insatiable flood of images everywhere, which can only overwhelm local romanticism….
Claude Megson, another of the ‘new romantics’, was an Auckland architect who had a remarkable talent for astonishing manipulation of small spaces into great spatial experiences. Auckland, ever urgently wanting new experiences, gave him plenty of opportunities….
    The strands of originality in the work of the five architects identified by the Dowse began to wither away after 1984.
    You can see this in a vivid, visual manner if you place any copy of Houses magazine beside the book NZ Architects’ Houses, 1970. In the 1970 publication, page follows page of rich spatial delight: architecture of the greatest originality, all stemming from the use of our limited building materials and our trust in each other – builder and architect – which was typical of old New Zealand.
    The 1970s’ book shows that a great number of New Zealand architects at that time were all doing really beautiful, original work, very much our country. Houses magazine, of course, does its best but it can only show that the 1970s’ New Zealand originality, in most cases, has faded into varying streams of international modernism.

Full article here: The new romantics

“…fantastic really because he was so passionate…”

Carolyn Smith from Architecture Smith + Scully talked to Claire Ellery, editor Houses, “about running a practice and her life in architecture,” including …

Q: Do you think the way you approach architecture, then or now, was influenced by your peers and teachers at university?
I think for me I was possibly more influenced by some architects who were in practice at the time. At university it was the studio tutors who I think had the most influence. I had David Mitchell and Claude Megson, who was fantastic really because he was so passionate. You didn’t always agree with him. He was a very stubborn man but he did some amazing designs and they were kind of unique and he pushed you to follow an idea….

Full article here.

Enduring Architecture Award for Claude Megson’s Cocker Tonhouses

Cocker Townhouses / Claude Megson Architect. Image © Patrick Reynolds

Claude Megson’s Cocker Townhouses were awarded an Enduring Architecture Award at the 2014 NZIA Architecture Awards.

Remuera’s Iconic Architects And The Significant Homes They Designed . . .

From a post at the Kellands Real Estate site…

Being an inspirational architect and teacher himself, Claude Megson has had arguably the biggest influence on several generations of Auckland architects, while his many clients have been able to enjoy living in his enormously life-affirming houses.  Norris House in Walton Street won the 2005 Enduring Architecture Award and his iconic style is obvious in townhouses he designed in Hapua Street and Warrington Road.  Some of New Zealand’s currently acclaimed architects were students of Claude Megson.

Full article here, including mentions of Vernan Brown, Megson employers  Gummer & Ford, Roy Binney and Horace Massey.