Life at the Rotherham House in the 1950s and 1960s

Abstract

Guides to oral history acknowledge the value of this research methodology in enriching published records with memory and personal perceptions, thoughts, feelings and insights. This paper uses oral history to enrich the published record of one of New Zealand's best modern houses – the Rotherham House in the Auckland suburb of Stanley Bay. Bruce Rotherham designed and, with others from the Group Construction Company/Group Architects, built it in 1950–51. He then left the Group in 1952 and left New Zealand in 1955, never to live there again.

The house comprises a double-height volume with a brick stair column leading to a mezzanine bedroom without balustrades or handrails, just a floor upturned at the sides. Published records focus on the radical (“experimental”) nature of the design. Scholarly attention has also been given to the death of a man there in 1962: Leon Lesnie fell from the mezzanine, having been caught in bed with his lover, by her husband.

This paper uses oral history to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the house, particularly its ownership, occupancy and use during the 1950s and 1960s. It presents the recollections of Jeremy Rotherham – son of Bruce – who lived in the house with his mother, Elizabeth, and sister, Ann, on and off until he was fourteen, when his mother sold it. In relating Jeremy's recollections of his childhood home, the paper activates and animates the building and shifts its reputation and associations from death to life. It also reflects on methodology and the specifics of the interviewer-interviewee relationship: Jeremy is my partner; I am entangled in the Rotherham House story. My telling of it does not follow the recommended oral history approach of ethics approval, formal interviews and transcription. Rather, it draws from multiple unplanned conversations and the spontaneous sharing of memory.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I would like to thank Jeremy Rotherham for his input into this paper and much more besides. I would also like to thank Janina Gosseye and her colleagues at the University of Queensland for the opportunity to present the paper at their November 2013 symposium, “Lost in Conversation: Constructing the Oral History of Modern Architecture”. Thanks also to Janina for pursuing the theme of the symposium for this issue of Fabrications and to my two referees, for their helpful suggestions on the paper.

Notes

^1. David Mitchell and Gillian Chaplin, The Elegant Shed: New Zealand Architecture since 1945 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1984), 32.

^2. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design (Auckland: Godwit, 2004), 123.

^3. Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, “Inside our Best House,” Canvas (supplement to the New Zealand Herald), 3–4 January 2004, 12.

^4. A New Zealand Institute of Architects plaque recording this award is fixed to the outside of the house.

^5. Allan Wild, “Rotherham House,” in Long Live the Modern: New Zealand's New Architecture, 1904–1984, ed. Julia Gatley (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008), 61.

^6. Julia Gatley and Bill McKay, “Novel Building Ventures: Group Experiments in Design and Build,” in Group Architects: Towards a New Zealand Architecture, ed. Julia Gatley (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2010), 46.

^7. Devonport Borough Council, “District Scheme: Approved Second Review,” 1986, 184.

^8. Dinah Holman and James Lunday, “North Shore Heritage Inventory Record Form,” n. d. (c. 1994).

^9. Email from Cara Francesco, Auckland Council, to Julia Gatley, 15 October 2013.

^10. “Oceania,” in Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture (19th edn), ed. John Musgrove (London: Butterworths, 1987), 1519, 1521.

^11. Simon Twose and Andrew Barrie, Familial Clouds: Palazzo Bembo, 13thInternational Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 29 August – 25 November 2012 (Auckland: s. p., 2012).

^12.Last, Loneliest, Loveliest: The New Zealand Pavilion; 14thInternational Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, ed. John Walsh (Auckland: NZIA, 2014), 75–77.

^13. Gill Matthewson, “House Work: Women and the Group,” in Group Architects, ed. Gatley, 178–83; and Gill Matthewson, “Suburban Imaginings: The Rotherham House Stories,” in Imaginings: Proceedings of the 27thInternational SAHANZ Conference, eds. Michael Chapman and Michael Ostwald (Newcastle: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2010), 253–57.

^14. The seven were Campbell Craig, Jim Hackshaw, Ivan Juriss, Bret Penman, Bruce Rotherham, Allan Wild and Bill Wilson.

^15. The various members of the Group completed their architecture degrees some years later, Rotherham in 1961, for example, and Juriss and Wilson in 1964.

^16. The word whare translates as “house” and refers to Maori buildings, often with rectangular plans, pitched roofs and a porch and entry under one of the gable ends.

^17. See, for example, Mitchell and Chaplin, The Elegant Shed, 32–33; Peter Shaw, A History of New Zealand Architecture (2nd edn) (Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett, 1997 [1991]), 206–07; Lloyd Jenkins, At Home, 123; Wild, “Rotherham House,” 61; and Gatley and McKay, “Novel Building Ventures,” 46–48.

^18. “House Built with a Difference,” New Zealand Herald, 10 July 1952, 10; and “New Ideas in Houses,” Weekly News, 16 July 1952, 30.

^19. David Mitchell, “Group Architects: Hot and Cool,” AAA Bulletin 86 (December 1977): 4–6; and “Allan Wild: An Interview,” AAA Bulletin 86 (December 1977): 6–11.

^20. George Haydn in “Extracts from Tapes of Bill Wilson's Lectures Compiled Especially for the 26th March 1982 Meeting of the Architectural Association Auckland in Honour of the Group,” unpublished transcript, Architecture and Planning Library, The University of Auckland, Auckland, 1982, n. p. (9th page).

^21. Allan Wild, “Post-war Generation,” unpublished paper, n. d., 7.

^22. Wild, “Post-war Generation,” 7.

^23. See Allan Wild, “The Group: A Modernist Memoir,” Cross Section: NZIA News (April 1999): 16–19; Allan Wild, “A Tale of Two Cities: Wellington and Auckland in the Forties; A Student Discovers the Modern Movement,” in Proceedings from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Launch of DOCOMOMO New Zealand (Wellington: New Zealand Historic Places Trust, 1999), n. p. (10 pp.); and Wild, “Rotherham House,” 61.

^24. Lloyd Jenkins, At Home, 123.

^25. Lloyd Jenkins, “Inside our Best House,” 15.

^26. Letter, Bruce Rotherham, London, to Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Auckland, 24 January 2004, Rotherham Family Collection, Auckland. Rotherham also commented in this letter that of the various members of the Group Construction Company, it was Campbell Craig and Bret Penman who helped him most with the brick work and the concrete foundations, while he did most of the carpentry himself.

^27. Julia Gatley, “Who was Who in the Group?” in Group Architects, ed. Gatley, 17. See also Julia Gatley, “Group-cum-Townscape?: Bruce Rotherham at Llewelyn-Davies Weeks Forestier-Walker & Bor,” in Landscapes and Ecologies of Urban and Planning History: The 12thAustralasian Urban History Planning History Conference, eds. Morten Gjerde and Emina Petrovic (Wellington: Australasian Urban History/Planning History Group, 2014), 213–28.

^28. Gatley, “Who was Who in the Group?” 18. I refer to a letter from Bruce Rotherham, London, to Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Auckland, 16 October 2003, Rotherham Family Collection.

^29. Gatley and McKay, “Novel Building Ventures,” 46; and Bruce Rotherham, attachment to CV, n. d., 3, Rotherham Family Collection. Note: Rotherham's brackets.

^30. There are multiple references to these overseas influences in various chapters of Group Architects. See also Robin Skinner, “False Origins: The Group, California and the Desire for Indigeneity,” Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand 22, no. 1 (June 2012): 80–101.

^31. Gatley and McKay, “Novel Building Ventures,” 46–48.

^32. Gatley and McKay, “Novel Building Ventures,” 47.

^33. Matthewson, “House Work,” 181–82.

^34. Matthewson, “House Work,” 182. Note: Matthewson's brackets.

^35. Matthewson, “House Work,” 182. Matthewson refers to “Surprised by Husband: Fell to his Death,” New Zealand Truth, 14 August 1962, 12.

^36. Matthewson, “Suburban Imaginings,” 254–55.

^37. Matthewson, “Suburban Imaginings,” 255.

^38. Graeme Lay, North Shore Literary Trails, North Shore City Heritage Trails Series (Auckland: North Shore City Council, 2002), n. p. Lasenby has written numerous books since 1987 when The Lake (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1987) was published. Crump was writing earlier, was also prolific and is best known for A Good Keen Man (Wellington: Reed, 1960).

^39. Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “A Guide to Recording Oral History,” accessed October 2013, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/hands/a-guide-to-recording-oral-history.

^40. Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 23.

^41. Donna M. DeBlasio, Charles F. Ganzert, David H. Mould, Stephen H. Paschen and Howard L. Sacks, “Preface,” in Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History, eds. Donna M. DeBlasio, Charles F. Ganzert, David H. Mould, Stephen H. Paschen and Howard L. Sacks, (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009), 1.

^42. DeBlasio et al., “Preface,” 3.

^43. DeBlasio et al., “Preface,” 2.

^44. See, for example, John Peter, The Oral History of Modern Architecture: Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994); Shaking the Foundations: Japanese Architects in Dialogue, eds. Christopher Knabe and Joerg Rainer Noennig (Munich; New York: Prestel, 1999); and Steven Philips, L.A. [Ten]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture, 1970–1990s (Zürich: Lars Müller, 2014).

^45. In Guidelines for Preparing Conservation Plans (Wellington: New Zealand Historic Places Trust/Pouhere Taonga, 1994), 6–7, Greg Bowron and Jan Harris present and define four criteria for the assessment of cultural heritage value: social, aesthetic, scientific and historic.

^46. Abrams, Oral History Theory, 55.

^47. Abrams, Oral History Theory, 10.

^48. Charles T. Morrissey, “Oral History Interviews: From Inception to Closure,” in Handbook of Oral History, eds. Thomas L. Charlton, Lois E. Myers and Rebecca Sharpless (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2007), 171.

^49. Morrissey, “Oral History Interviews,” 179–80.

^50. Morrissey, “Oral History Interviews,” 180.

^51. David H. Mould, “Interviewing,” in Catching Stories, eds. DeBlasio et al., 88.

^52. Mary A. Larson, “Research Design and Strategies,” in Handbook of Oral History, eds. Charlton, Myers and Sharpless, 121–22; and Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (2nd edn) (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 55–56.

^53. Larson, “Research Design and Strategies,” 122. See also Ritchie, Doing Oral History, 55.

^54. Larson, “Research Design and Strategies,” 122. See also Ritchie, Doing Oral History, 56.

^55. Larson, “Research Design and Strategies,” 121.

^56. See Naomi Stead, “A Semi-detached Introduction of Commentary on Architecture,” in Semi-detached: Writing, Representation and Criticism in Architecture, ed. Naomi Stead (Melbourne: Uro Media, 2012), 8–9.

^57. I make this claim with reference to my various chapters in the 2010 book, Group Architects, and subsequent research on Bruce Rotherham's British life and work.

^58. The original drawings are not held in the Group Architects Collection in the University of Auckland Architecture Archive, nor in the Rotherham Family Collection, and Auckland Council has not been able to produce any of them for me to date, although the publication of the west elevation in Lay, North Shore Literary Trails, shows that the North Shore City Council could produce at least some of them as recently as 2002. In the University of Auckland Architecture Archive, there is a reproduction of a version of the floor plan. It has important differences from the building as built – notably, orientation, with the drawing showing the house 90 degrees clockwise of the house as built.

^59. In addition, there are three sets of measured drawings of the house in the University of Auckland Architecture and Planning Library, drawn in 1983, 1990 and 2008.

^60. Certificate of Title 662/253, North Auckland.

^61. Certificate of Title 662/253, North Auckland.

^62. The sites on which the First and Second Houses were built were two of eight subdivided by builder Edward Mountfort in mid-1948. Both were transferred to Bret Penman's father, Robert, on 3 May 1949. Certificates of Title 904/181 and 904/182, North Auckland. There are, however, photographs of the First House under construction with the date of March 1949 written on the back. See “First House” in Group Box, Architecture Archive, The University of Auckland.

^63. Penman bought the Stanley Bay site on 22 January 1949. Rotherham's drawings of “studio for architect” are dated 29 January 1949. See GP115, Architecture Archive, The University of Auckland. These drawings are published in Julia Gatley, “House Typologies,” in Group Architects, ed. Gatley, 100.

^64. Bruce Rotherham, handwritten CV in Bruce Rotherham Personal File, Group Architects Collection, Architecture Archive, The University of Auckland.

^65. Certificate of Title 662/253, North Auckland.

^66. Certificate of Title 54C/1266, North Auckland.

^67. Certificates of Title NA91D/454 and NA98D/180, North Auckland.

^68.Wise's Post Office Directory: Auckland Province (Dunedin: H. Wise and Co., 1952–58); and Wise's Post Office Directory: Auckland City and Suburbs (Dunedin: H. Wise and Co., 1958–70).

^69. Electoral Rolls for the North Shore, 1954, 1957, 1960 and 1963, Auckland Central Library.

^70. For information on Keith Patterson, see “Keith Patterson: Artist's File,” Fine Arts Library, The University of Auckland; and Keith Patterson [video recording], directed by Darcy Lange (Auckland: D. Lange, n. d. [c. 1990s]).

^71. For information on these individuals, see “Robert Ellis: Artist's File,” Fine Arts Library, The University of Auckland; Robert Ellis [sound recording] (Wellington: Department of Education, Visual Production Unit, 1982); Six Interviews, 1973 [video recording] (New Zealand: s. n., 1998); James Alexander Scott Burns, Suzanne Goldberg (Auckland: New Zealand Publishing Society, 1967); and “Suzanne Goldberg: Artist's File,” Fine Arts Library, The University of Auckland.

^72. See Marie Frances McMahon and Robyn Agnew, From the Word Go: Retrospective Show, September 2005 (Warkworth: Matakana Gallery, 2005).

^73. It was on the basis of these memories that the first two of the three ground floor plans of the house – that as bachelor pad and as family home – were drawn for Group Architects. Jeremy and I talked about producing an earlier bachelor pad plan, showing the shower dish and long-drop, but agreed that such a plan should not be published, because he could not be sure of their exact locations.

^74. See, among other books, Derek Challis and Gloria Rawlinson, The Book of Iris: A Biography of Robin Hyde (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2002). See also Jacqueline Matthews, “Hyde, Robin,” from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 27 February 2014, accessed 20 August 2014, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/4h41/hyde-robin.

^75. See Brigid Magner, “Crump, Barry – Work and Relationships,” from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 19 February 2013, accessed 13 May 2014, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/6c2/crump-barry.

^76. For information on Maurice Duggan, see Ian Richards, To Bed at Noon: The Life and Art of Maurice Duggan (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1997).

^77. Lloyd Jenkins, “Inside our Best House,” 12.

^78. The quoted words are from Morrissey, “Oral History Interviews,” 180.

^79. Jack Lasenby shares related memories, particularly of Bill Wilson and Group Architects, in “A Clearing House for the Arts,” Architecture New Zealand (July–August 2001): 91–98.

^80. Certificate of Title 113643, North Auckland.

^81. Lloyd Jenkins, “Inside our Best House,” 12.

^82. These were comments I heard when visiting the house during one of the open homes and which were reported back to me by others with an interest in the house, who took the opportunity to visit.

^83. Reyner Banham calls the Petite Maison de Week-end “proto-Brutalist”. He also identifies that house as a precedent for the very well-known Maisons Jaoul (1956). See Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism (London: The Architectural Press, 1966), 85. Additional context for my use of the term “proto-Brutalist” can be found in Justine Clark and Paul Walker, “Cruditas: ‘A Kind of Colonial Brutalism’,” in FIRM(ness) commodity DE-light?: Questioning the Canons; Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Conference oftheSociety of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, eds. Julie Willis, Philip Goad and Andrew Hutson (Melbourne: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 1998), 73–82. Rotherham's buildings of the 1960s and 1970s were more overtly Brutalist. Some of these are discussed in Gatley, “Group-cum-Townscape?”

^84. I have not as yet found evidence to confirm Rotherham's ownership of Volume 3 of the Oeuvre Complète, in which the Petite Maison de Week-end and House at Mathes were published, but he did own Volume 4 and fellow Group member Ivan Juriss certainly owned a copy of Volume 3. The latter is now in my possession.

^85. The Villa Mairea includes flagstone paving, while Baker House utilises textured bricks, some with protrusions. Both buildings were included in Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition (2nd edn) (London: Oxford University Press, 1949 [1941]), 459, 469, 472–73, 475, 478–82, 491 and a range of professional magazines.

^86. See Banham, The New Brutalism, 85.

^87. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966).