Great Scott!
I’ve been a big fan of architect John Scott for many many years though it’s probably truer to say I was a fan of his architecture long before I became a fan of his personally. Before that, I simply didn’t know the work belonged to him. I’ve found his work timeslessly kind on the eyes and the landscape.
John Colin Scott was born at Haumoana, Hawkes Bay in June, 1924, the third of seven children of Kathleen Hiraani Blake and her husband, Charles Hudson Scott. His mother had English, Irish and Maori ancestors while his father’s was a Scottish and Maori combination. Some have said this Maori connection didn’t seem to play too much of a role in his childhood, nonetheless I wonder sometimes looking at examples of his adult work like St Mary’s Church in Greenmeadows whether he didn’t just intuit that cultural world view (of landscape) without too much fuss and bother.
I find the lines in the St Mary Church design aesthetically divine if you’ll pardon the expression! It’s form is anatomically breathtaking and courageous to me and remember we’re taking about a building that is over a quarter of a century plus years old now since it was designed.
“He attended Haumoana School and then St. John’s College in Hastings. He joined the Airforce and learnt to fly towards the end of the Second World War. From 1946-1949 he went to the Auckland School of Architecture and part time in 1950 but didn’t graduate. He married in 1951 then worked for Structural Developments for 18 months and briefly for Group Architects. He worked with Len Hoogerburg in offices in Hastings in the 1960s and early 1970s (Hoogerburg’s St. James’ Church in Hastings won a NZIA Merit Award in 1964) and later from his home at the Grange.
Early Work
Scott’s early work was mainly domestic and was influenced by Vernon Brown and Group Architects. The chapel he designed for St. John’s College in 1954 led to the commission for the Chapel of Futuna in Karori. Most of Scott’s commissions were for private houses but with significant public buildings along the way, including several Catholic churches, schools, the Maori Battalion Memorial Centre in Palmerston North, the Urewera National Park headquarters and others.
The Urewera National Park Headquarters at Aniwaniwa, beside Lake Waikaremoana, is an excellent example of Scott’s work. It nestles into the bush, it is simple and functional, and it’s perfectly proportioned. It also contains a wonderful Colin McCahon painting that seems like an extra window, looking out on the spirit of the Urewera.
The Chapel of Futuna is regarded as Scott’s best building but perhaps it is just the best known. It is significant because it’s bold; a departure from the architecture of the time, which still looked to a European heritage and perhaps supports my own inkling that he was intuitively ‘onto’ and ‘developing’ his own style out of the context of his upbringing whether he acknowledged its significance openly or not.
“Scott was able to take New Zealand forms and develop a New Zealand vernacular. (Not that many listened. New Zealand remains largely an architectural desert, with buildings referenced to places other than our own.) The Chapel of Futuna won a New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal Award in 1968 and a 25 Year Award in 1986. Scott was awarded a NZIA Silver Medal for a ‘House for Orchardist’ in Havelock North in 1969.
The Ngamatea house, built for Margaret Apatu won a NZIA National Award in 1991 and Scott was awarded a Gold Medal posthumously in 1999 for his contribution to New Zealand architecture. Many of Scott’s other buildings deserve recognition, from Our Lady of Lourdes to the Urewera National Park Headquarters, along with numerous other houses throughout Hawkes Bay.
People who own his houses are fiercely loyal (with a few gripes: small kitchens, lack of lights and power points, occasional leaks but suggests to me more tradesperson finish gripe than architectural) and several have commissioned a second house or bach. Living in a Scott house was described by John Pattison, who built two Scott houses, as living in a work of art.”
Around Central Hawke’s Bay
Scott was commissioned to design no less that 26 private homes or buildings. Between the years 1956-1982 he designed homes for locals including: Bishop and Gideon (1956), Todd (1957) Bridgeman’s from Ascot Station (1958), Allwood (1959), Hunter (1960), Wynne Lewis (1961), Hewitt (1962), Strawbridge (1964, later the shop in the main street, Ruataniwha Street in 1969 also St Joesph’s Primary School), Waipukurau Wines & Spirits (1965), John Pattison ‘The Brow’ (1967), Hatuma Lime (1968), Franklin and St Colomba School in Waipawa (1969), Train (1970), Dunn – Waipukurau Wines & Spirits (1973), Stewart – Wool/Hay shed (1974), Gieson, Wallingford (1975), Bishop (1976), Lawson (1977), Butler, Waipawa (1980), Apatu (1981) and Jull (1982).
My personal favourites are the Strawbridge home along SH2 heading south toward Palmerston North, Andy Train’s old place just on the fringes of town heading out toward Farm Road but more than either of them I’ve always loved the contemporary feel (since 1969) of the Franklin home along Porangahau Road (on the hill before the intersection of Porangahau Rd and Racecourse Road). It was Michael Franklin’s parents home and it’s always struck me as fulfilling the Real Estate mantra of location, location, location.
It’s still definitively contemporary even after 39 years, still visually interesting with not a tired bone in it’s body and very sure of itself, like some old rangitira (chief) looking out over Lake Whatuma. It’s definitely my favourite. It’ll give the new kids on the block over at Hatuma Heights something to think about, it’s years give it mana (prestige and honour) but its design is like ta moko (distinctive and time-honoured).
Craig Martin whose parents had a Scott-designed home observed, “He sketched out his ideas on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper. We still have them. He didn’t like pretence. His buildings are honest and straightforward. The details are simple and functional. “He let his materials speak for themselves. ”
The man had his faults but don’t we all, I love his input into our town. “He was the antithesis of the suited professional who delivers drawings on time. Brilliant, mercurial, usually barefoot, he worked at all hours of the day and night and followed his own schedules. He was no manager, nor did he make much money. However, his attitude to his profession was one of complete integrity.
He wasn’t a showman and rejected overseas trends and superficial fashions. Form was always his first consideration, but he still expected his buildings to be technically sound. John Scott passed away on 30 July 1992 at Green Lane Hospital, Auckland, following a major heart operation. Sometimes I find that you just like a thing, like a building because you can feel the essence of it.
I think that’s what’s always drawn me to the Scott-designed homes even when I didn’t know who made them. It was the essence of the man represented in the end product. Does that make him great? Not entirely, but left to my own thinkings, I’d say the integrity of his design just may.
