Living Halls: The Second World War Memorials of the First Labour Government

Abstract

The First Labour Government of New Zealand (1935-1949) is famous for its social reforms and its government housing programme, often characterised as the introduction of a “welfare state”. This paper examines a much less well known architectural legacy of that government, the war memorial community centre. Government policy established that unlike other wars, memorials constructed to commemorate the Second World War would be utilitarian buildings, not statues, cenotaphs or arches. What’s more they would be community centres rather than sports or other facilities. The public response was enthusiastic, partially because of a pound for pound government subsidy, and over 700 applications were received for community centres, including a number of whare nui (meeting houses) and whare kai (dining halls) on marae. This paper traces government policy and explores the utilitarian war memorial in relation to both the New Zealand and international context. It also looks at the architectural form of typical war memorial community centres. However the main thrust of this paper is the exploration of public acceptance of utilitarian memorials and several reasons are explored, among them the effects of national character, government subsidy, ANZAC Day, the principles of Modernism and the nature of modern industrialised war.