Image courtesy of Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Napier.Image acknowledgements: Cedric Firth - Monro State Building, Nelson 1966, photographer Geoffrey C. Wood Studio, 66217c courtesy of Nelson Provincial Museum
I LOVE books full stop; but I especially love the sketchbooks, notebooks, and journals of artists and designers. So I’m naturally wishing I could be in Napier later this week for the opening of “Long Live the Modern – New Zealand’s New Architecture 1904-1984,” an exhibition that brings together photographs, original drawings, period books and journals, as well as new architectural models and recent photographs of eleven key buildings from around New Zealand. In addition, it features a section focussing on the works of three key Hawke's Bay architects - John Scott, Guy Natusch and Len Hoogerbrug. Opening at Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gallery on Friday night, the show was initiated by the publication of a book by the same title, edited by Julia Gatley and published by Auckland University Press. Curated by Gatley and Bill McKay, from the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning, the exhibition focuses on the Post-World War II period, which saw enormous government expenditure on housing, public buildings and infrastructure projects, and a concurrent wave of private and commercial developments. Both the book and the exhibition, it should be noted, “use the word ‘modern’ in a very broad way, pursuing twentieth-century architectural initiatives concerned with the new – new technologies, new materials, new forms, new building types, new ways of living – initiatives embedded with the belief that the new would necessarily change lives in positive ways.” The exhibition is being toured by Gus Fisher Gallery and University of Auckland. www.hbmag.co.nz
'Ply-ability' is the first exhibition in New Zealand devoted to the fascinating story of innovation and change in New Zealand plywood studio furniture. I was sent these gorgeous images from the show, which is showing at Hawke's Bay Museum and Art Gallery until June 27.
The exhibition is a celebration of the extraordinary talents and innovation of one of New Zealand's most important furniture designers, Garnet Campbell (Garth) Chester [1916-1968], who was a self-taught designer who worked from the 1940s through to his retirement in 1964. He is recognised for his innovative bent-plywood furniture designs from the mid-late 1940s and for his steel-framed designs from the 1950s.
Ply-ability also recognises the work by other New Zealad designers working with plywood. It includes rare examples of local Modernist furniture, experimental works by amateur designers and designs by some of our leading contemporary furniture designers - like David Trubridge, Humphrey Ikin, a number of architects (John Scott, Michael Payne and Allan Wild) and many more. www.hbmag.co.nz 
