A Maori Gothic, un-British pile
Poet A.R.D. Fairburn suggested that Roy Lippincott and Edward Billsons design would scare old ladies in the park. The Education Boards architect, who liked boring single-storey primary schools with more corridor than character, called it un-British and out of harmony with our national character. Minister of Education C.J. Parr wondered if it would look better without the tower. Others ridiculed it as Maori Gothic or a wedding cake.
Fortunately the university bureaucracy stood its ground and stuck with this Gothic-inspired amalgam of medieval and modern designs. Enjoy the New Zealand details - the stone flax-seed pods, the ponga fronds, the kākā and kea - and see whether you agree with historian Keith Sinclair that it is one of the few examples of visually successful architectural siting in the city. Like naughty Victorian seaside postcards in a museum, the once-controversial Old Arts Centre, now better known as the Clock Tower, basks in a respectability confirmed by its presence on the dust jacket of the universitys official history.