Southern Modern: Ted McCoy lecture

This year’s Ted McCoy lecture is presented by Auckland-based academics, Associate Professor Dr Christoph Schnoor and Senior Lecturer Graeme McConchie, both in the School of Architecture at Unitec Institute of Technology | Te Pūkenga. 

Christoph Schnoor has published widely on modernist architecture, with a focus on Le Corbusier and émigré architect to New Zealand, Ernst Plischke. Graeme McConchie has had leadership and teaching roles with the School of Architecture since its inception in 1994.

Through their research work with students, Schnoor and McConchie have immersed themselves in New Zealand modernism. They have investigated Ted McCoy’s architecture in depth: first, on a research trip to Dunedin and Wanaka in 2021 with a handful of BAS students, which has led to the book Southern Modern: Six Houses by Ted McCoy to be presented at this lecture. The students had selected houses by McCoy, which they visited, studied and wrote essays on. 

Schnoor and McConchie also commenced research into the history of one of Dunedin’s most prominent buildings, the Hocken Building at the University of Otago. The challenge confronted by McCoy was how to manage the insertion of a modernist aesthetic into the fabric of 19^th century Dunedin. This lecture focuses on how the architecture of the Hocken Building (1972–1980) responded to the university’s masterplan of the post-war period but equally evidenced a strategy to articulate and define the university precinct.

Thursday 21^st  September 2023

Venue:

Dunedin School of Architecture, Ōwheo Building, Otago Polytechnic | Te Pūkenga, 115 Anzac Avenue, Dunedin.

Free entry, doors open 6.00pm for a 6.30pm start. 

Sponsors:  Design Windows, Allegion, Equus, Naylor Love.