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Kōrero: Domestic architecture

Birkenshaw House, Remuera, Auckland

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Birkenshaw House, Remuera, Auckland

At the same time as Ernst Plischke promoted the internationalism of modernism, some local architects thought it could be adapted to create a vernacular style. Among these was Auckland architect Vernon Brown. He used mono-pitched (half-gable) roofs and creosoted weatherboard cladding, sometimes contrasting with white walls or window frames, to create forms that were reminiscent of the shed-like architecture of colonial New Zealand. This is his Birkenshaw House in Remuera, Auckland, in 1945. It followed the modernist dictum for simple forms – the only decorative feature is the angled roof struts under the eaves – but the mono-pitched roof located the house in New Zealand.   

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Architecture Archive, The University of Auckland

by Sparrow Industrial Pictures Ltd

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Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Julia Gatley, Domestic architecture – Modernist houses and flats, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/45068/birkenshaw-house-remuera-auckland (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Julia Gatley, i tāngia i te 17 April 2014.