19: Opening up the TVNZ HQ onto Victoria Street
What if TVNZ HQ wasn’t such a fortress?
There are a number of central government buildings across Auckland that historically have really let the city down, offering very little to the public realm and in their design quality setting a poor standard for the private sector.
One of the worst offenders perhaps is the TVNZ headquarters on Victoria Street West in the city centre.
Clearly, this is a building from a different (post-modern) age. It appears to almost revel in a fortress-type quality in terms of the way it presents to the surrounding streets. It is almost unintelligible to find a way into the building from the public street (as opposed to the basement carpark). And it presents a series of largely solid, blank walls and generally uninviting appearance on all sides; not to mention the famous bunker bus stop on Victoria Street.
3 simple changes that could be made include establishing a legible and friendly front door to the corner of Victoria and Hobson Streets; providing engaging signage – possibly innovative digital media displays that say interact with passers-by at a pedestrian scale and speak of what goes on inside the complex; and possible creation of some exhibition or gallery space that can stage changing exhibits from the TVNZ archives or be used for promotional activity.
Other state broadcasters, like the BBC in the UK, or Radio France in Paris, are quite memorable places and even major attractions within the city. After all, they play a large role in the nation’s storytelling and culture.
Wouldn’t it be great if TVNZ had even just a nod to that? Otherwise there seems no point to being in the city centre at all. They might as well be out in an anonymous business park somewhere away from the public eye.
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Onya Stuart. So simple and so obvious. TVNZ, tune in!
Great idea. The gallery could, for example, show all Mike Hosking’s suits mounted on dummies with an audio spouting some of his memorable historical lines like ‘John Key really knows his stuff’ and ‘Gerry Brownlee is fully in control of the Christchurch earthquake recovery process’. It would be a laugh a minute and would certainly activate the street although passers by might get a little confused between reality and representation; but nothing new there.
+1
Warren and Mahoney the architects who designed this building are designing a lot of the Christchurch re-build. Let’s hope they’ve learnt something since 1990 when they won an NZIA Architecture Award for this building: “THE TVNZ CENTRE IS THE VERY ESSENCE OF THE STAR WORLD, THAT OF SEEING AND BEING SEEN.”. http://www.warrenandmahoney.com/en/portfolio/tvnz-television-network-centre/
ego architects designing ego buildings ,what has changed. Its time that the public challenged ‘ the Architect knows best ‘ culture.
+ 1.
Ukshully, make it + Mike Hosking’s salary.
TVNZ engaging with the city – let’s make it happen!
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but the TVNZ centre is going through a major redevelopment (thanks for the cash Sky City convention centre). It’s going to take a few years to complete. I’ve heard that the original layout of the building was in case TVNZ was unsuccessful and they could convert it into a shopping mall, hence the large atrium at the heart of the building (think Elliot St mall). Love the ideas about jazzing up the bus shelters.
Actually it’s not thanks to SkyCity. It’s basically a subsidy from taxpayers to allow it to happen. TVNZ were forced to sell the neighbouring land for the convention deal and as a result have had to spend large sums of money in rebuilding their existing site and renting elsewhere until they have enough space for everyone to be on the same site again. This was made possible by TVNZ being allowed to give a much smaller dividend back to the government. In effect, a taxpayer subsidy to allow SkyCity a private company to build a conference centre.
“Principle No.2: In any building there should be a hierarchy which establishes the relative significance of the different elements which make up the building so that we know, for instance where the front door is!
Buildings should reflect these hierarchies, for architecture is like a language. You cannot construct pleasing sentences in English unless you have a thorough knowledge of the grammatical ground rules. If you abandon these basic principles of grammar the result is discordant and inharmonious. Good architecture should be like good manners and follow a recognised code. Civilised life is made more pleasurable by a shared understanding of simple rules of conduct.
A good building that understands the rules explains itself in its forms and spaces, tells us where to go and what to expect. It emphasises those parts that are public and important. Even in the smallest house there is a distinction between back and front doors,between living room and attic windows.
Only in recent large buildings have we lost this sense of hierarchy, so that it is hard to discover whether the block at the end of the street is a hotel, offices or the civic centre. etc etc ”
This is a quotation from Prince Charles book “A Vision of Britain – A Personal View of Architecture” published in 1989 following an earlier television series. Prince Charles views were not popular with a significant segment of (modernist) members of the Royal Institute of British Architects but the Ten
Principles have significant validity, if we are to achieve the type of city I see proposed in this blog.
So yes, at the very least, a friendly front door would be a big step forward forward for this currently rather unattractive Victoria Street building.