Q&A with architect Malcolm Walker

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Tell me about your interest in history and heritage buildings.

I’ve always had an interest in heritage since I was at school in Hokitika. I was even campaigning then to preserve a neglected Carnegie Library. I went to Christchurch for a science degree, and in my last year I discovered architecture through meeting Miles Warren and John Scott. So, I thought “Oh bugger this” and enrolled in architecture at Auckland University and it fitted me like a glove.

I was still interested in New Zealand history and did my sub-thesis on the huge Chapman Sawmill in the town of Ross. Following that my full thesis was on architects of the Westland Gold Fields. There were more than you might expect, and they were clearly chasing the money. In 1977, my ex-partner and I were commissioned to research and write a history of the Westland County Council. It was such an adventure.

History has a strong connection with architecture. Architecture writes the visual and physical narrative of settlements, economics and society.

I’m not a heritage architect, but I’m often called one as a considerable amount of our work is alteration work to older buildings. All buildings of course are heritage of some sort – some more than others. Significant heritage buildings throughout New Zealand should be maintained, appreciated and enjoyed. For this to happen you must understand the building and its meaning. It’s often no good just copying and fixing what’s there; often when they’re dead and unused there’s a reason why they die. Understanding this and exploiting what you have is important to achieve a useful and significant building. Sympathetic and supportive local authorities can help to achieve this.

What is your connection to the Hokitika Government building?

My father worked there before I was born, and I have always been interested in it. The whole town knew people that worked in the building as it housed Lands and Survey, Lands and Deeds, Forestry and the Court.

About 15 years ago, I became indignant with the council for allowing it to be sold for some miserable amount for demolition and sale of the bricks. Fortunately, this didn’t go ahead.

After several further failed sales and proposals, three investors bought it and came to see me to make it a hotel. It was perfect but the building had significant earthquake and maintenance issues. They were good people, but they didn’t have the money for it.

It went back on the market, and I campaigned for Government to buy it suggesting it would make ideal headquarters for the Department of Conservation, who are a significant part of the Hokitika economy and character. Eventually the Government gave funding to Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga to buy it for restoration and strengthening and potential future lease to DOC.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga then engaged me for the preliminary design for the building, and I’m now happily on the project team as an Advisor. It’s great to see the project is starting to get traction under their custodianship. My role is to make sure the building’s interests are represented. I love that building and I want to see it come back to life; magnificent, lively and performing as well as any contemporary building would.

Tell me about the building, what makes it so special?

It was designed by John Campbell, who was the Government Architect at the time. He delivered many buildings, including Parliament Buildings, the Law Courts in Dunedin, and the Ponsonby Post Office in Auckland.

The Hokitika Government Building was built in two halves. They built the first half, then needed to negotiate for more money to build the second half. Not an unusual story in New Zealand!

It had a huge parapet which was removed for earthquake safety. The building is all masonry, soundly built, with timber floors.

It’s formal; symmetrical with elaborate window work. While lovely on the outside, it’s glumly functional inside. I’ve always been interested in getting light and crossventilation into it – that's on my agenda for it.

This building is such an asset to the town and its loss would be significant on many levels.

Tell me about other heritage buildings in Hokitika that you are involved in. My partner and I, and my cousin and her partner, went halves and bought the Renton’s building, which the council had approved for demolition. We’ve been sweating it since but we’re getting there now. The building was a large family hardware business from the gold rush days. It's big, so everything we touch and change is expensive.

I learned lessons from what we did there. There was considerable public aggression as many people thought the building was a nuisance and worthless, but now it’s being painted and has a new verandah and is cleaned out inside, looking loved. People keep saying, “I was against it being kept, but you’ve put your money where your mouth is. Good on you,” and that’s what will happen with the Hokitika Government Building too.

All towns have many types of heritage buildings. Local councils should support efforts to keep these. If you take extraordinary buildings away, it will diminish history and the town. You’re a cartoonist as well, can you tell me about that?

I’ve been a cartoonist longer than I’ve been an architect. I’ve drawn for a wide range of newspapers and magazines for many years including Sunday News, The Independent, NBR, The Dominion, NZ Doctor and Architecture NZ. I’m also responsible for many cartoon books and illustrations. Cartooning is an interesting parallel career with architecture. My take is they are both processes that take complex and disparate information and distil them into something coherent, articulate and easily understood. It’s fun! n