Peter Beaven’s long career has been marked by his opposition to modernist philosophies during which time his practice has been animated by a strong sense of history and place. Beaven’s diverse body of work is incorporated into New Zealand modernism as though his strongly expressed beliefs about the role of the architect under modernism were immaterial.

Beaven’s maintains that he was never a modernist. In an interview with David Killick he says of modern houses: “I don’t want to be unkind, because a lot of architects are driven by their clients…but I think if you drive down Carlton Mill Road you see most of the issues there.

“I think they are fashionable objects which come out of a computer, they will become out of date and out of fashion very quickly, because what makes eternal buildings is that they understand fully the cultural history they are built in, the time they are built in the materials available, in other words they are buildings of their time, and context, history, and they last.”

{cue applause}

Related houses on Christchurch Modern:

Millbank Ln. Carlton Mill.

Photo of Peter by Stephen Goodenough