How Auckland was shaped by following the money

Tangible civic urban spaces are where people gather to engage in public life – to exercise their rights as citizens and socialise. These stretch back to the ancient Greek agora and the foundations of democracy. In the following centuries, the Place de la Concorde in Paris and Trafalgar Square in London exemplify the importance of places where freedom of assembly, expression, and association remain: functioning democracy inscribed in the physical tissue of the cities. Form following function. Has this been the case in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland?

Carol Willis, in her book Form Follows Finance (1995), traces the history of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago and argues these can best be understood as the embodiments of business, a physical representation of what she calls the “vernaculars of capitalism”.

As a resident of Tamaki Makaurau and an urban planner, I would argue the same could be said about the public spaces in city’s centre. The value of spaces was recognised in Tamaki Makaurau’s colonialist origins in 1840, as places that fostered and supported public engagement, as places that were integral to a well-functioning democracy, places that connected to our fellow citizens, spaces that fostered the sense of being part of a community that extends beyond families and close friends.

In the 20th century urban planners and council recognised that well-designed civic spaces had economic as well as social benefits. They attracted pedestrians to nearby businesses, stimulating the local economy, and enhancing property values in the surrounding areas. Iconic civic spaces often become city symbols, contributing to identity and character and instilling pride among residents.

Our ancestors recognised the value of parks: without them we wouldn’t have the Domain, Albert Park, Cornwall Park or the Botanic Gardens. They left us a legacy of public green space that has since been expanded with 28 regional parks. They (and we) haven’t done so well in creating points for civic events and activities in the urban centres. Aotea Square (1979) and Queen Elizabeth ll Square (1980) were the first. Both are located along Queen Street (the city’s historic ‘main Street’). The larger Aotea is situated in the administrative heart of the city, adjacent to the 1911 Town Hall, and the culmination of the aspirations of the predominantly small business-oriented elected Auckland City Council. While they may have had business interests at heart, they also emphasised the importance of ‘the cordiality of life’ and a city built ‘for the public generally and not for the exclusive benefit of a few capitalists’.

Since then, the urban form in Tamaki Makaurau has been shaped by quite a few capitalists, or the ‘capitalist vernacular’.

My research has focused on Queen Elizabeth ll Square at the foot of Queen Street, in Onepanea/Commercial Bay, a development that is part of the first stage of the regeneration of the harbour front. It is, I’d argue, a moving manifestation of form following finance, often at the expense of the development of civic spaces.

Onepanea to Māori, and renamed (appropriately, it turns out) Commercial Bay by New Zealand’s colonists in 1840, was selected as the focus of the centre of the nascent city of Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau and one of a string of bays along the Waitematā foreshore. These bays were gradually filled through land reclamation, and were mainly under the control of the Auckland Harbour Board (AHB) from 1871. Over almost a century, reclaimed land was developed for port storage, but most were leased for commercial uses – rents offset port revenue fluctuations.

In 1963, the AHB resolved to redevelop its central city landholdings and the Victorian and Edwardian buildings, which had fallen into disrepair and generated low returns relative to the yields of the adjacent multi-storied office and retail spaces.

It commissioned the University of Auckland’s inaugural professor of town planning, Robert Kennedy, to prepare a master plan for its Commercial Bay and Point Britomart reclamations, which comprised 13 hectares of land on either side of Queen Street, including the site of its original railway station and branded the Auckland Downtown.

Kennedy’s 1964 proposal included a mix of commercial, residential and public uses, including a 5,518 m2 ‘Queen Square’ of civic importance, bridging the Commercial Bay and Point Britomart blocks. His proposal was reported on enthusiastically in media – but then the AHB commissioned Melbourne-based property consultants George J Connor and Associates to review its financial feasibility.

Connor et al recommended a more contained development, with more space given to commercial and carparking spaces. It didn’t have any residential development or public space, apart from a modified Queen Square. The AHB largely took the council’s advice.

To cut a long story very short, after limited tender interest, the development went to a consortium of Australian interests in alliance with Fletcher Trust and Investment company in 1966. Approval was subject to finance from the Australia Mutual Provident Society (AMP) which ultimately called the shots. The development was completed with maximum height restrictions, bulk, location and veranda requirements being largely ignored. There were protests from architecture and planning communities concerned with the impact the development would have, namely in creating wind tunnels and casting shadow on public spaces in the area.

The QEII Square, while a shadow of what had been conceived in Kennedy’s plan, was the first square of any size that had been created in Auckland’s 20th century. The consortium saw value in it; it granted pedestrian access to their developments and enhanced the view from their offices. Auckland residents might remember the square for the fountains and the stainless steel ‘Wind Tree’ sculpture by the Japanese sculptor Michio Ihara. They might also remember it as a space that was buffeted by wind and almost always cast in shadow, as many architects and urban planners had foreseen.

And now? The area is being developed by Precinct Properties – a real estate property investment and development company with ties to the AMP – which launched a $681 million development precinct project in 2015 for a 29-storey office tower, retail and hospitality centre in a regeneration project to be known as Commercial Bay. In 2017, Precinct also purchased the square from the council.

The better news is that QEll has been replaced by Te Komititanga, a new public space created on its original lower Queen Street extension. This includes a new ‘square’ of approximately 4600 m2, close to Kennedy’s original intention, although carved out of the existing streetscape rather than being a new addition to the public realm. However, it is a place of civic importance and will act as a gathering place; its name and aesthetic paving reference natural and cultural heritage and its meanings to the local iwi.

Overall, the redevelopment of this part of the waterfront has been hailed as potentially successful – that privatising a portion of public space is a necessary trade-off for dynamic modernisation, opening up the waterfront and improving public transit.

The history of QEll Square is a local example of Carol Willis’ contention that form often does follow finance as much, if not more than function, and has shaped the form of Auckland’s central city. Like New York and its skyscrapers, our city has been shaped by economic factors such as land values, construction costs, and potential rental income rather than purely architectural or aesthetic motives. If not by New Zealand’s ‘vernacular capitalism’, then Australia’s.