2019 Auckland Architecture Awards Winner
The University of Auckland Building 119
There’s an algorithm governing the pattern of the original stonework on Building 119 at the University of Auckland, although the architects doing the restoration found it fiendishly hard to discover and the original stonemasons didn’t know about such things at all. But that’s the building: complex, within considerable formal constraints. The contrasts continue: it’s severe and yet, in its soft colours and with that tactile stonework, it’s also warmly welcoming – a university building to pitch you, as student or staff, into a direct relationship with the institution’s history. It’s lovely, and the restoration by Architectus and Salmond Reed speaks so clearly of the love with which the building was reborn: decorative patterns and details have been skilfully recreated; a gorgeous Lippincott staircase nearby has been recreated in the building itself; new elements like the padding of built in furniture have been charmingly well inspired by the original. Bravo.
- Practice
- Architectus and Salmond Reed Architects Limited in association
- Category
- Heritage
- Location
- Auckland
