ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: The Auckland Harbour Board Workshops building is in the Modern style. The northern portion (which accommodated offices, stores department and the electrical, plumbers', painters' and carpenters' shops) has two storeys with mezzanine. The southern section (which housed the boilermaking, blacksmiths' and machine shops) is single storeyed but of similar height and treated in a similar manner to the rest of the building. The Modern is a variation of the International style with much of that movement's starkness and commitment to the aesthetics of the machine age. The Modern style emerged in the United States after the Wall Street crash of October 1929 and survived unchallenged until the late 1940s. It was largely a reaction against Art Deco and what was perceived as the over-ornamentation and elaboration of the past. The new direction reflected the influence of the Futurist Movement in which the paramount concern was the exhortation of the modern age, movement, passion for the machine, mass production, modern materials, clean lines and aerodynamic curves. Ideally the style was stripped bare of all ornamentation. While industries and corporations in the United States during the 1930s embraced the Modern style as symbolising progress and a promise of a better future, the style was slower to be adopted in New Zealand. In Auckland it made a tentative appearance in Commercial/Industrial buildings at the end of the thirties. However, the following decade marked by restrictions on construction brought about by the Second World War, inhibited new work. The corner site allows full play of the style expressed in the building's curve, rendered walls and low horizontal profile. The exterior utilises metal, glass and concrete, products of the machine age. Where timber does occur, for example in window joinery on some internal partition walls and for stair rails, this has been used sparingly with simple profile. Internal walls are free of mouldings and cornices. Ornamentation is provided solely in the pattern of fenestration. Windows have been used for decorative effect enhanced by plain individual elements which stress the horizontal and intensify the contrast of light and shadow. The massing of these elements is all important. Entrances on the street facades are articulated by variations in grouping of windows, each grouping being different. The building's main entrance on Hobson Street, (emphasised by a taller section of parapet over the main gates and a flagstaff) is distinguished by the use of five octagonal window, a form not found elsewhere in the building. This is entirely in keeping with the Modern style where circular windows were occasionally used to balance rectangular elements and emphasise the horizontal aspect of a design. In plan the building is almost "E" shaped, opening onto concrete yards adjacent to the eastern side of the viaduct basin, allowing pontoons, launches and floating plant to lie alongside. Areas accommodating the larger work spaces required for machine shop, and blacksmith's shop have pitched roofs of corrugated fibrolite, a contrast to the flat roof of the building's northern section. The machine shop has gable roof (hipped at the southern end) with rounded central monitor. The boilermaking and blacksmiths' shops have sawtooth roofs although as a concession to the Modern style, the form is rounded along the ridges and provides a convenient location for continuous ventilators. The steel truss roof of the machine shop ensures a work space uninterrupted by structural pillars. Banks of windows on the shop's eastern and southern walls provide a measure of natural light. As a result of care taken in the design and appearance of the rear of the building it presents a pleasing aspect when viewed from the west (the viaduct basin side). MODIFICATIONS: c.1949: internal alterations first floor providing additional office accommodation 1955: freestanding cafeteria constructed on roof at the building's northern end. (This structure has flared walls and shallow gabled roof and is constructed in corrugated steel.) Date unknown: internal stairway removed adjoining main entrance at Hobson Street (south-western corner of the building's northern section) removal of internal wall, first floor opening out workshop area in electrical department small addition made adjoining the rear, central wing of the building (addition single storey, concrete block with mansard roof of long-run steel)