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Athfield Architects: People and Place

The exhibition Athfield Architects: People and Place, and the large-format book on the practice that was launched on the opening weekend, both tracked the practice from its formation by Ian Athfield (1940-2015) in Wellington in 1968, through to publication/opening, by which time it comprised additional offices in Auckland and Christchurch and a staff of over 50 people. Ian Athfield was a great personality in New Zealand architecture and the exhibition had to reflect that. The City Gallery’s South Gallery was filled with original architectural drawings, old photographs, scale models of buildings, and artefacts from the Athfield Architects office. They told the story of bold, creative and instantly recognisable early work, mostly houses, developing into commercial buildings in the 1980s, and major public, institutional and urban projects from the 1990s on. Athfield Architects continues today as one of New Zealand’s most awarded architecture practices.

LOCATION 

City Gallery, Wellington;

George Fraser Gallery, Auckland

YEAR

2012

CONTRIBUTORS

Curator: Julia Gatley

Photographs:Courtesy of Kate Whitley and City Gallery Wellington

Exterior shot: Courtesy of City Gallery Wellington