The beauty of brutalism
It's clear the building's suit of unpainted, pre-cast, corduroyed concrete isn't appreciated by all. But I think demolishing the Archway theatres (built 1972-73) would be a mistake. For those unfamiliar with the building, it is a smart design, an exquisite example of brutalism, and its concrete embodies a lot of energy that – in these days of environmental consciousness – shouldn't go to waste.
I've taught in the building. I've been confronted by its massive concrete form. I've also walked through it with its architect, Ted McCoy (1925-2018), which only increased my deep appreciation of it.
The Archway theatres replaced the tennis courts that once fronted the university's Home Science Building (designed by Edmund Anscombe in 1920). Its name is rather perfunctory – identifying its location proximate to the Archway building. Such straightforwardness is an important part of the building's charm – and a vital part of brutalist architecture.
The cross-shaped plan of Archway Theatres. Photo: McCoy Wixon Architects
When the Archway theatres building was constructed, the intention was to demolish the Home Science Building. This would have given the Archway theatres a generous forecourt to the river Leith and a clear view of the planned Hocken (now Richardson) Building (1967-79). But it was not to be. Instead, the impossibly tight site meant that McCoy astutely positioned the four lecture theatres to create a cross-shaped plan, rotated 45 degrees to the former tennis courts. The raked under-croft of each lecture theatre flaunts a discourteous rear end to nearly every passerby.
Brutalism often gets a hard time. It is probably the most misunderstood architecture. Partly this is because the 'brut' in brutalism derives from the French term for raw concrete – 'béton brut'; partly because its ethos of honesty in construction often comes across as tough, hard, and unyielding, rather than simply frank. Brute force rather than the intended socially conscious truth.
Brutalism began with the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles (1952). Well-known local examples include Jim Beard's Hannah Playhouse (1971-73) in Wellington's Courtenay Place, and Bill Toomath's now largely demolished Wellington Teachers College (1966-77). That lost complex, and the buildings of Warren and Mahoney that were demolished after the Canterbury earthquakes, mean high-quality brutalist buildings have become rare in New Zealand.
In universities across the world, similar designs were built. This was the new architecture of progressiveness appropriate for places of research and learning. Brunel University Lecture Centre (Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, 1965-66) – given cult status in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) – is one example. Closer to home is Chris Brook-White's strident F Block (1969-72) at the Central Institute of Technology.
The legibility of each Archway theatre is further reinforced by blue, super-graphic numerals embossed into exterior walls, denoting the pragmatically named Lecture Theatres 1, 2, 3 and 4. At each angle where two theatres meet, an entrance courtyard is formed. Sunken gardens are created to the east of the site, mitigating the vertical impact of the sloping ground.
Inside, a corridor links the theatres and circumnavigates the central service core. Along its inner wall, an abstract mural depicts the river Leith and its banks that meander through the university. At one point, a fish leaps up high. At other moments, campus features become geometrically refined into rectangles and curved deviations. This mural establishes a theme of movement that is also painted on the projection boxes protruding from each theatre back wall. Arrowheads converge. Pathways bend around fixed points. They represent what McCoy saw as the constant lifeblood of the university. Everyone moving, going forwards, sidewards, discovering new directions.
For brutalists, the building's exterior of rear-facing lecture theatres, projecting boxes and spiral stairways demonstrated a direct and proper connection between a building's form and function that enabled people to immediately comprehend architecture and was honest about it.
The volume of the building's concrete might also challenge some – but this volume also means that demolition will waste the high levels of embodied energy used to construct it. Cement production – one factor of the energy needed in concrete buildings – accounts for 8 percent of the world's carbon emissions, leading some UK engineers to oppose building demolition because it is unsustainable to replace.
We have few New Zealand buildings that thoroughly demonstrate international brutalism. McCoy's building carefully does this. But it also makes strong connections to its physical site and to ideas about what a university is. It depicts the University of Otago in its core. This makes the Archway theatres a rare building at Otago University and a particularly special one in New Zealand.
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