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Roger Walker
A Biography of a New Zealand Architect between 1967-1997
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Early Life
Chapter 2 Late Life and Career
Conclusion
Appendix 1 Chronological List of Walker’s Buildings
Appendix 2 Awards and Competitions
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
I am enormously indebted to my wife for her enthusiastic support, helpful comments and effective criticism. The kindness of my wife and family made it possible for me to write this book.
Introduction
The New Zealand architect Roger Walker (b.1942) is one of the few architects who has created a new style which has affected the establishment and evolution of a New Zealand architectural identity. Walker was born when modern movement architecture started to appear in New Zealand, he studied architecture when modern architecture reached maturity and the theories of post-modern architecture were being formulated, and he began to practice as post-modernism began its initial development. During his growing practice Roger Walker has significantly developed his personal architectural style and has contributed to an emerging concept of regional architecture and strengthened the notion of New Zealand architectural identity. Roger Neville Walker was born in Hamilton, New Zealand in 21 December, 1942. His father, Andrew Frank Walker, was a chemist and his mother Margaret (neé Clothier) was a doctor’s receptionist. Roger Walker is the eldest of three children, having one sister and one brother. His brother Gavin still lives in Hamilton and is a builder specialising in roofing contracts. His sister, Sandra, is a book-shop manager in Auckland. Walker himself has been twice married. From his first marriage, which was dissolved in 1984, he has two sons and one daughter; Emily Susan is 27 years old and working as a television broadcaster in Sydney; Jacob Llewellyn is 25 years old and working as an artist, and Edward is 23 years old and working as an art director in films. In 1986 Walker married Elizabeth Street, and they have one son, Maxwell, who is 10 years old.
Chapter 1
Early Life and Career
Walker’s early life was little different from that of thousands of other New Zealand children born in the 1940s. He grew up in quarter acre suburban section in Hamilton in a single storey brick and tile, builder-designed house with a large front lawn and a straight concrete path to the front doorway. This conventional environment formed the backdrop to the upbringing of the younger Roger Walker, a backdrop which was to become a powerful motivating factor in his development. The strongest impression made by this early environment was its disagreeable and disappointing qualities, its flatness and absence of surprise. Roger Walker’s picture-books told him about castles, secret passages, spiral staircases and hidden corners. But in the real world he was confronted by a depressing landscape and homes with meaningless forms and boring shapes. Walker preferred his colourful books that enlightened him and increased his knowledge about forms, colours and materials.
Walker’s parents enthusiastically provided him with every opportunity to develop and extend his own identity and individuality. However, the child Roger disliked all forms of sport and therefore filled his spare time playing with meccano, building trolleys and even wooden carts to go down the local hills. He also built huts and assembled model aircraft using balsa wood, paper and glue. There were a lot of opportunities for playing, especially in the wonderfully verdant gully with its difficult topography near his home. This was later filled in to become a school playground. This destructive act deeply impressed Walker and he has always seen the flat site as the most difficult one on which to create a house. After the school buildings were finished Walker was offered left over building materials which he used to build his first fantasy Gothic castle, ‘Fort Nyte’. Constructed with the assistance of his brother and friends, it was armed with a catapult on the top but neighbours felt their privacy was endangered. As a result, the local authority gave Fort Nyte two weeks notice to be demolished because it had been built without a permit, and consequently the ten years old Roger returned to his trolleys and aircraft. This was to be the first of many occasions in which Walker’s buildings contravened local building codes. “Walker still vividly remembers the neighbours as materialists who well understood the value of the BMW parked self-consciously on the front drive, but were singularly devoid of a human idea”.
As a child Roger Walker travelled around the country with his father, trout fishing and climbing mountains and hills. He also enjoyed staying with his brother and sister at the beach. All these experiences gave him a deep love for and appreciation of the physical and varied landscape of New Zealand. At Hamilton Boys High School, which he attended from 1955 to 1960, he studied English, art and mathematics but felt that he could not express himself through these subjects because what he really wanted to become was a car designer. Walker was particularly interested in the design of racing cars. He read a lot of car magazines, while his drawings and paintings of futuristic cars awakened a remarkable interest in art. But the metal and wood workshops attracted him more than merely drawing or painting pictures. At high school, Roger Walker knew little about architecture and he was not able to distinguish between architect’s buildings and those of other designers, because all of these buildings seemed to be the same. Walker was told about architecture by the vocational guidance officer during his School Certificate fifth form year. Roger concentrated on getting a scholarship to finance his university study and, with great enthusiasm, decided to become an architect in order to create buildings that would give pleasure to those who used them.
In 1961 Walker began to study at the University of Auckland School of Architecture. Moving from Hamilton to Auckland
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Cover: BookRix Image
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 20.07.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-5061-1
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