Author(s): Julia Gatley

Architecture | Aotearoa New Zealand Non-Fiction

‘Architecture is a social statement that has a responsibility beyond the building, the client and the architect.’ – Ian Athfield

Over many years, Ian Athfield and his team at Athfield Architects have reshaped New Zealand architecture – from the Buck House at Te Mata Estate to Wellington’s Civic Square, from Jade Stadium to Athfield’s own sprawling settlement on the Khandallah hills. Reflecting on half a century of work, Julia Gatley’s landmark book introduces a major body of architecture that will lead readers through modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Its four-part structure traces Athfield’s formative years; the fledgling firm and its radical 1960s and ’70s houses; its important break into commercial work; and finally its impact in the public, urban and institutional realms.

Athfield Architects combines newly commissioned photography, evocative original architectural drawings and a rich text informed by extensive archival research and interviews with key figures in the firm. Taking us from the slums of Manila to the streets of post-quake Christchurch, this major book shows how New Zealand’s leading contemporary architect is transforming the way we all might live.

Review:

...the book is meticulous, scholarly yet accessible, and a gorgeously presented record of 200 Athfield Architects projects since the 60s. - Chris Barton, NZ Herald

This is a study and a survey of living-spaces designed for human experience in the architectural language of late modernism. Gatley demonstrates a keen understanding of this style and analyses her subject’s development of its principles in relation to the needs of this practice’s varied clients in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. - Cassandra Fusco, Takahe

Athfield Architects is a fabulous document of one of New Zealand’s most inventive architects. - Tim Gruar