WellingtonNZ.com, New Zealand

When Long Live The Modern opens at TheNewDowse, visitors will notice a local flavour to the exhibition’s celebration of New Zealand's modern architecture. TheNewDowse season of this acclaimed touring exhibition features profiles of the Lower Hutt Civic Buildings, designed in the 1950s by Ron Muston and Keith Cook and increasingly valued as examples of innovative modernist architecture. Other Wellington projects include Massey House by Ernst Plishke and Cedric Firth, The Hannah Playhouse/Downstage Theatre by James Beard and The Futuna Chapel in Karori by John Scott.

Long Live the Modern is curated by Julia Gatley and Bill McKay whose book of the same name was published by Auckland University Press last year. Both the book and the exhibition demonstrate how international ideas were both pursued and adapted to New Zealand concerns, climates and conditions.

The exhibition brings together original drawings and period books, journals and photographs, as well as new architectural models and recent photographs of significant modern buildings from around New Zealand. It concentrates on the post-World War II period, which saw enormous government expenditure on housing, public buildings and infrastructure projects, and a concurrent wave of private and commercial developments.

“Now the magic wand has been waved. With the recent opening of the magnificent War Memorial Library and Cultural Centre Lower Hutt shows signs of becoming the belle of New Zealand cities.” Celia and Cecil Manson, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, April 5, 1956

Interests: Exhibitions