Preservation only a facade

The 1920s Chatham on Pitt St. Picture / Dean Purcell

Architects and heritage campaigners are shocked at the return of facadism in Auckland City with a 1920s shop front being kept while an apartment tower goes up behind in the bohemian Karangahape Rd precinct.

Auckland City's planning fixtures committee approved the facadism project in Pitt St on Tuesday, four weeks after the council beefed up rules to protect unlisted heritage buildings in the Karangahape Rd and Queen St areas from demolition.

When the rules came in, Mayor Dick Hubbard spoke of a move away from facadism, saying he cringed at the results of the 1980s and 1990s.

Institute of Architects' heritage spokesman Adam Wild said it was hard to justify facadism in the same breath as heritage protection. The practice had been roundly dismissed by just about every country with a conservation charter, he said.

Architect Don McRae, of urban design lobby group Urban Auckland, regretted facadism rearing its "ugly head" in the city.

"We would rather the new building was designed skilfully in context and sympathy with the area rather than retaining existing facades."

Heritage campaigner Allan Matson said facadism would strip away so much of the heritage value of the 1920s Chatham Building that "you might as well just bowl it".

Last night, Christine Caughey, chairwoman of the environment, heritage and urban form committee, defended the decision, saying that the eight-storey apartment tower was set back 6m from the facade to create the impression that it was on a different site.

Detailing of the new and the old still had to be finalised.

Christine Caughey said Pitt St was a character area and the development was character forming "and talks to the other buildings that are there as part of the K Rd precinct".

Planning fixtures chairwoman Faye Storer said short of preserving entire buildings, "this is exactly the kind of result that we are looking for in situations where new developments will impact on older buildings".

The development, which will have 49 apartments and four retail shops, is being undertaken by Kevin Cox and John Able-Pattinson, of Greenstone Pitt Trustees.

Greenstone planned to demolish the two-storey Chatham Buildings for a new building but after facing difficulties from the planning fixtures committee and the council's urban design panel went away in July to consider the "incorporation of the existing building" into the development.

The committee subsequently approved a new design on Tuesday keeping the facade. The public were not given any say over the development.

Facadism

* An architectural trend, popular in the 1980s and 1990s, that left the front wall of an old building intact and built a modern structure behind it.