Athfield Architects

Over many years, Ian Athfield and his team at Athfield Architects have reshaped New Zealand architecture - from the Buck House at Te Mata Estate to Wellington's Civic Square, from Jade Stadium to Athfield's own sprawling settlement on the Khandallah hills. Reflecting on half a century of work, Julia Gatley's landmark book introduces a major body of architecture that will lead readers through modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Its four-part structure traces Athfield's formative years; the fledgling firm and its radical 1960s and '70s houses; its important break into commercial work; and finally its impact in the public, urban and institutional realms. ATHFIELD ARCHITECTS combines newly commissioned photography, evocative original architectural drawings and a rich text informed by extensive archival research and interviews with key figures in the firm. Taking us from the slums of Manila to the streets of post-quake Christchurch, this major book shows how New Zealand's leading contemporary architect is transforming the way we all might live.

Julia Gatley is a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, where she teaches architectural history, design, and measured drawing, and the cofounder of the New Zealand branch of DOCOMOMO International—the international working party for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the modern movement. She is the author of Group Architects and Long Live the Modern: New Zealand’s New Architecture, 1904–1984, and the recipient of a New Zealand Institute of Architects President’s Award and a University of Auckland NICAI Early Career Research Excellence Award.