One of the things I enjoy most about walking around the
streets of inner-city Auckland is the architecture, in particular the feast of
old villas that still grace the streets of suburbs like Parnell and Grafton,
Ponsonby and Herne Bay, St Mary’s Bay and Grey Lynn.
Many moons ago, I owned and lived in one of them, in Ponsonby, in the days before they
became the heart’s desire of the trendy young professionals with more money
than sense who are willing to pay in excess of a million dollars for what is
basically a small old wooden cottage.
I suppose I should be grateful to those
wannabe social climbers as at least their aspirations ensure the continued
existence of these charming pieces of New Zealand’s architectural history but I
can’t help but despair at how they gut the interiors of all remaining traces of
the villa’s past and preserve only the facades, in the same way the developers
of the late twentieth century gutted Auckland’s old office towers and hotel
buildings.
Luckily, I only see the exteriors during my meanderings so I
can fool myself that their interior heritage features remain intact. Luckily, too, most
of the exterior ornamental elements on these old villas are to be found around the front
entry porch or surrounding their generous verandahs or adorning the gable ends,
so are easily viewed by the pedestrian.
I’m no expert on architecture, so here, briefly, is what
those who are have to say about these charming old villas (Patrick Reynolds, Jeremy
Salmond and Jeremy Hansen, Villa: From
heritage to contemporary, Godwit, Auckland,
2012):
The villa as a
style in colonial New Zealand
assumed the dress of the Gothic revival, but fused this with the classical
language of Italianate architecture, hybridising both styles into something
unique to this country. (p.23)
The villa went
through several phases covering the early and late Victorian eras (up to 1905),
Edwardian (until 1910) and finally ‘transitional’ as it began to absorb
elements of the bungalow style, and as a style of building it expired around
1920. (p.26)
At the height of
the villa building boom, a dizzying array of fretwork, embellishments and bay
window styles were available, used on both large gentleman’s residences … and
on more modest buildings. (p.60)
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| Cast iron decoration |
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| Above and below, wooden fretwork and friezes |
Sometimes manufactured from cast iron, more often carved in
timber, the embellishments you are likely to spot on these charming old villas
include delicately designed fretwork brackets on the verandah posts, lace-like fretwork
friezes and geometric lattice infill running along underneath the verandah roof
edges, finely turned balusters on the verandah railings and fancy finials on
the gable ends.
According to Stuart Arden and Ian Bowman in The New
Zealand Period House: A conservation guide (Random
House, Auckland,
2004, p.206), during the mid to late Victorian era and the Edwardian years,
these ornamental elements of the villa’s architecture would have been highlighted
by the paint colour schemes:
Complex styles
usually picked out trim and framing elements. Veranda posts had brackets and
mouldings of contrasting colours to posts; finials were a contrasting colour to
their brackets; doors had the panels a lighter colour than the stiles and
rails, and gable framework was a contrasting colour to the filigree details
between. Cresting was generally dark, brackets under eaves could be a different
colour to the cornice and the eaves another colour, usually light.
Sadly, many of Auckland’s
old villas are nowadays painted in single, stark colours – plain white seems to
be a particular favourite, which only serves to display their owners’ ignorance
of the history of their property.
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| Stark white and characterless |
Though there are already some restrictions in place, personally,
I’d like to see Auckland City Council place much more emphasis on preserving
the city’s built heritage, by more stringently limiting and controlling the
alterations owners can make to heritage properties. Hopefully, then, what
remained of the city’s colonial architecture would be preserved and conserved
for those strolling the city’s streets in the future to enjoy.
For images of the decorative gable ends of colonial villas, see Auckland architecture: decorated gable ends.
