Julia Gatley on Group Architects

Edited by Julia Gatley, 'Group Architects: Towards A New Zealand Architecture' uncovers the history and debunks the myths surrounding a firm that has become synonymous with New Zealandness in architecture.

"New Zealand must have its own architecture, its own sense of what is beautiful and appropriate to our climate and conditions.”

Julia Gatley wrote to a bunch of precocious second-year Auckland architecture students in 1946. The students established themselves as the Architectural Group and resurfaced several years later as Group Architects, in time becoming one of our most celebrated and enduringly influential architectural practices.

Group Architects: Towards A New Zealand Architecture, edited by Dr. Julia Gatley, is the first full assessment of the firm, from the early collective through all its various incarnations until the death of founder Bill Wilson in 1968. Best known for their houses ‘built for local conditions’, often timber, with open-plan interiors, the Group also produced shops and offices, factories and kindergartens. The book presents the many building types they worked on, illustrated with redrawn floor plans, archival shots and new photographs of the buildings.

Engagingly written and brilliantly illustrated, Group Architects uncovers the history and debunks the myths surrounding a firm that has become synonymous with New Zealandness in architecture. Contributing authors include Julia Gatley, Bill McKay, Christine McCarthy, Gill Matthewson, Kerry Francis, Brenda Vale, Andrew Barrie, Paul Walker and Justine Clark.

About Julia Gatley:
Dr. Julia Gatley is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Melbourne and is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at The University of Auckland. Her first book, the critically acclaimed Long Live the Modern: New Zealand’s New Architecture, 1904–1984 (AUP, 2008) encourages the heritage recognition of New Zealand’s modern architecture. In 2009, she received a New Zealand Institute of Architects President’s Award for her Services to Architecture. Dr Gatley regularly publishes in journals and presents at conferences. She is a member of the Architectural Centre Inc; DOCOMOMO New Zealand; the International Planning History Society; the New Zealand Institute of Architects; the US Society of Architectural Historians; and the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.

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