"From over-sweet cake to wholemeal bread": the Home & Building years: New Zealand Architecture in the 1940s

Abstract

In 1940, when Helen Gosset, writing for the New Zealand Home & Building, asked her readers to "[a]nalyze for a moment the intricate exterior design which meets one's eye from the streets of a modern city," she gave a vivid account of urban life of that decade:A complexity of motor wheels, iron girders, tall window - dotted buildings, flashing electric signs, vivid shop windows, traffic signals, and as a back drop for all this, the bustle of modern industry. These things make up the lives of moderns. Is it any wonder that they find a certain comfort in straight lines and the absence of ornament?