Author Description

"Frederick H. Newman, Vienna 1900 - Wellington 1964: Lectures on Architecture", published in 2003 by A & S Books, Ghent. -- In 1938, anti-Semitism in Germany's expanding territories reached an unprecedented climax. Many of the Third Reich's Jews escaped the continent for 'new worlds' and a chance to start life over again. Architect Friedrich H. Neumann (1900-1964) left Vienna for New Zealand, accepting a draughtsman's position on his arrival in January 1939. Over the following 25 years, Newman (his name from 1947) assumed increasing responsibilities. His studies in Vienna and Paris, and experience as a practitioner in these cities and in Stalinist Moscow were brought to bear upon tasks to hand in the Government Architect's office in Wellington. Though Newman shared a decidedly continental outlook, he assumed the role of teacher and mentor to his New Zealand colleagues and the younger architects in the Ministry of Works. In presenting Newman through his own archive of writing on and images of architecture, this volume documents one individual's response, architectural and intellectual, to a radical displacement from Europe to its antipodes, neither completely separated from his homeland, nor completely at home in his new country. The lectures collected in this volume include: "A Moral Approach to Social Order", "On Architectural Education", "The Functional Aspect of Overall Design", "The Interrelation of Engineering Design and Architecture", "Beauty in Engineering", "Social Factors in Architecture and Their Implications for New Zealand", "Housing Design", "New Zealand Housing in the Light of an Expanding Society", "Architecture in Hydro Design", "The Architect's Design and His Status: Comments on a Visit to England, France and Italy", "Design". Andrew Leach is a senior lecturer in design at the Wellington Institute of Technology and a researcher in Ghent University's Department of Architecture and Urban Planning.