Vertical Living in the 1910s: New Zealand’s First Purpose-Built Apartment Buildings

Abstract

What if research impact becomes a major driver for the funding and assessment of research projects in all academic disciplines? In architectural history, this would encourage increased engagement with the public and with the heritage industry, more research with practical application or demonstrable benefit to society, and more cross-disciplinary research.Motivated by an interest in, rather than a requirement for, work with practical application, the larger project from which this paper draws examines the history of medium- and high- density housing in New Zealand. The aim is to demonstrate its long history in a country that has a severe housing shortage, combined with commentators who remain focused on the “New Zealand dream” of the detached house and garden, regardless of its consequences for the environment, infrastructure and transportation. Framed within this broader project, the paper seeks to identify New Zealand’s first purpose-built blocks of flats, and asks, who realised them, what characterised the designs, and for whom were they built?

Auckland’s Middle Courtville (1914-15) is reputedly the country’s first. The paper discusses it and the handful of others from the 1910s. Identifying a definitive “first” is complicated by the fact that two of them also operated as hotels. The paper confirms architect A. Sinclair O’Connor as the primary designer of New Zealand’s first purpose- built blocks of flats. It shows that the flats were aimed at professionals and office workers, and that period media focused on the positive attributes of the building type, interpreting the buildings, their “conveniences” and the lifestyles they offered as modern. Finally, it reveals a clear relationship between the building type and women’s history, deserving of further investigation.