Ian Athfield

Ian Athfield was one of New Zealand’s foremost architects of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He has been described as one of our best known architects since Sir Miles Warren, and was “audacious, anti-establishment, non-conformist, deliberately provocative, out to shock and amuse, consciously disrespectful and all the while both democratic and anti-hierarchical”.He was also “…one of New Zealand’s best, and best-known, architects, [and] one of only a handful to be a household name nationwide.”

Athfield was born in Christchurch and graduated from the University of Auckland in 1963 with a Diploma of Architecture. As a student he had summer-work at the Christchurch office of Warren and Mahoney, and later joined Stephenson and Turner Ltd in Auckland in 1962. In 1963 he, and his wife Clare, moved to Wellington where Athfield worked for Structon Group Ltd.  In 1965 Athfield started work on his first major project, the family home in Amritsar Street in Khandallah, and this community of buildings later housed the practice of Athfield Architects (established in 1968).

Early projects were constructed with a broad palette of materials including corrugated iron, plaster, stainless steel and fibre glass. As a reaction to much of the bland Modern architecture of the period, Athfield built in a deliberately vernacular style using features harking back to colonial buildings. His designs incorporated finials, steeply pitched roofs, timber weatherboards, verandahs and double hung windows. He was also inspired by the architecture of the Greek Islands with their exterior envelopes of continuous plaster. Conversely, he also much admired the work of Mies van der Rohe with their precise and refined detailing of industrial materials; yet another area of influence was the geometric massing of the Japanese Metabolists. Athfield combined all these disparate elements into a highly eclectic and personal style. During the 1970s Athfield built and renovated numerous domestic houses and buildings, developing a distinctive and highly personal design approach based on the repetition of small scale elements and complex massing.

Athfield's practice expanded during the 1980s from (predominantly) residential work to a wider variety of community and commercial buildings. As well as continuing to work on small-scale projects, the practice portfolio includes churches, pubs, council flats, stadiums and commercial high-rise buildings. Athfield Architects’ best known works include Telecom Towers, Civic Square and Wellington Library, Jade Stadium in Christchurch and work on the design of the Bangkok rapid transport system.

Ian Athfield was President of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (2006 – 08), held a Teaching Fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington, served on the board of the Historic Places Trust, and was NZIA Architectural Ambassador to Christchurch following the 2010 - 2011 Canterbury Earthquakes.
Sir Ian Athfield was named Knight Companion of the Order of Merit in the 2014 New Year’s Honours’ List.

Sources:
“Sir Ian Charles Athfield,” archINFORM website accessed 3/4/13, http://eng.archinform.net/arch/3436.htm

Barton, Chris. “Book Review: Athfield Architects,” accessed 3/4/13 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10823253

Gately, Julia. Athfield Architects, (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2012) vii

“The Arts Downunder,” The Arts Foundation website accessed 30/07/2015  https://www.thearts.co.nz/artist_page.php&aid=144&type=bio