Designed between 1959 and 1962, the Alington house in Karori, Wellington, is a key work within the oeuvre of William (Bill) Hildebrand Alington. The Alington house was initially destined for a site in the northern Wellington suburb of Crofton Downs, until two sections of land in Karori were offered to the Alington family by James Beard, a close friend and Alington's former supervisor at the MoW. The land was situated right at the very edge of the Wellington City Council's urban boundary, and, as it was bordered by the Johnson Hill Bush Reserve, it largely consisted of established native bush. Although Alington had completed some projects for the MoW's Hydro-Electricity Department, and was working on other significant projects during the design/construction period of the Alington house, it is the house that afforded him the freedom to explore the principles of his architectural philosophy in built form. The general view that architects' own homes express the architect's principles with much greater clarity than their commissioned projects is based on the assumption that, by removing the restrictions put in place by the client, the architect can concentrate on producing their architectural 'masterpiece'. In the words of the biographer of English architect Ernö Goldfinger, the architect's home becomes "a combination of manifesto, practice piece and advertisement". Goldfinger himself observes: A young architect ought to be made to build his own house first. It is the only way to learn [...] he ought to have the chance to show what his ideas really are. This was the certainly the case for Alington, who was able for the first time to explore the principles that he had developed in his final year sub-thesis at Auckland University College in 1955, and further developed in his postgraduate studies at Illinois. As his own client, Alington was able to introduce rigorous constraints (such as the strict mathematical proportioning, the consistency of detailing and expression, etc) that went beyond those required for a normally commissioned building. This self-imposed discipline clearly reveals the practical application of the principles explored within his sub-thesis, and is also a defining feature of his oeuvre more generally. Alington had been sketching plans and perspectives of his ideal home as early as 1954, but these were based upon an idealised property. Nevertheless, many of the same features that can be observed in the completed Alington house are evident in these early drawings. These include the Modernist pavilion typology (mastered by Mies van der Rohe) with wide overhanging eaves and clearly articulated structure, as well as the centralised symmetrical organisational planning and the treatment of the exterior as extensions of the spatial sequence of interior volumes . The final design, however, displays a much more sophisticated modulation of the structural/organisational module that is based on a series of alternating minor and major bays, rather than the regular rhythm of the earlier scheme. The house was built in 1962, with the majority of the construction undertaken by Alington himself, with the aid of a local carpenter, George Nicholls. The Alington house has been identified as an exemplar of Modern Movement work in New Zealand. In this respect it is important to note the influence of the Architectural Group on the Alington basic motivations of the Alington house. During the 1940s a group of architecture students at the Auckland University got together under the name of The Architectural Group, writing a manifesto with the ultimate aim of encouraging the establishment of Modern Movement architecture as the basis of all architecture, design, and planning in New Zealand. Embedded within this manifesto was the call for an architecture that would be responsive to its New Zealand context - the climate, resources, people, and way of life that make this country unique - from these factors an architecture would emerge that would uphold the principles of the international Modern Movement, while at the same time be explicitly and recognisably of New Zealand. The Alington house, as a development of this ideal, was built at a time when these principles had become loaded with further ideological baggage. This took the form of the search for a local vernacular to answer the Architectural Group's call for a distinctive indigenous architecture, and it was the cottages and sheds (especially) of New Zealand's colonial period that architects turned to for their vernacular references. That Alington chose to instead refer to an international Modern Movement typology - the Modernist pavilion - reveals a desire to remain true not only to international Modern Movement principles, but also to the principles espoused by the Architectural Group in their manifesto. The building's integrated relationship to the outdoor environment and the bush setting; the planning around the informal lifestyle of a typical New Zealand family; and especially the rationalised construction and material palette, which largely consisted of timber (much of it native), are all features that could be identified as markers of the New Zealand context within which the house is built. The jurors of the 2001 NZIA-Resene Local Award for Architecture, reflecting on the relaxed lifestyle that is catered for by building, feted the Alington house as having been a benchmark in residential architecture for many years. The eschewing of references to the colonial past, at a time when this was fast becoming the norm in residential architecture (and was soon to be taken to a whole new level of Postmodern irony and mannerism in the work of Roger Walker and Ian Athfield), places the Alington house as a late example of purist Modern Movement residential architecture in New Zealand. It is this observation that prompted Imi Porsolt, himself an important architect of the Modern Movement, to label the building as the final formalisation of a purist trend. Although the house has not featured in the major historical surveys of New Zealand architecture (such as Peter Shaw's A History of New Zealand Architecture (1990)), it has nevertheless been well documented throughout its lifetime. In 1980 it was featured in Bonny and Reynolds's Living with 50 Architects: a New Zealand perspective, and it has featured in newspaper and magazine articles (see bibliography of the registration report). It has also been an essay subject for architectural history students learning about Modern Movement architecture, and in 2005 was the subject of more extensive study in a Master's thesis at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Architecture. Its selection by the founding members of DocomomoNZ as one of 19 places that best represent the Modern Movement in New Zealand has led to international publication in The Modern Movement in Architecture: Selections from the Docomomo register. The Alington house has also been recognised by the NZIA. In 2001 it received a NZIA-Resene Local Award for Architecture, where it was recognised as a "benchmark in residential architecture". It subsequently received a NZIA-Resene Enduring Award for Architecture in 2007, which is awarded to buildings whose design has stood the test of time. The Alington family lived continuously in the house until 2005, when the house was sold to its current owner.

Style The Alington house draws on the architectural traditions of International Modernism (and specifically the Modernist pavilion typified by the work of Mies van der Rohe), interpreted for the New Zealand context. The low overhanging flat roof, attention to geometric proportional relationships, the structural articulation and large areas of glazing are aspects of this tradition that Alington has employed, while working within the constraints of timber construction materials and the natural landscape that are characteristic of the domestic architectural trends in New Zealand. The house is celebrated for its response to its bush setting, and Alington's manner of "working within the constraints of orthogonal geometries, proportional discipline and classical planning as well as the desire to clarify load bearing and born [sic] elements in timber post and beam". For these reasons, and the resulting "balance[d] spaces", the house has been identified as "a benchmark in [New Zealand] residential architecture for many years", and accordingly, was awarded a NZIA-Resene Local Award for Architecture in 2001. Layout and Key Spaces The layout of the Alington house is organised according to the logic of the structural system. Running through the house from south to north, the central three structural bays (one major and two minor) define the public areas. The structural bays of the east-west axis also define the spatial arrangement of the private zones of the house, which flank either side of the central spaces. The bedrooms in each corner of the western side (housing a bathroom in between) mirror an almost identical arrangement on the eastern side. The Palladian-like symmetry of the plan centres on an 'H'-shaped brick wall. Located on the southern side of this wall is the fireplace that opens into the sitting area, while the northern face defines the kitchen area. This central feature-wall stops short of the ceiling, emphasising its non-load-bearing role as a spatial divider for the public areas of the house. Although the middle portion of the house is in fact one open space, the separation created by the brick dividing-wall provides the impression of separate volumes while at the same time maintaining the visual connection between each 'room'. The glazed exterior wall, the brick dividing-wall, and the suggestion of enclosure provided by the structural module (reinforced by the original placement of furniture), provides the spatial definition to each of the public areas. The clearing amidst the landscape planting immediately outside the front door, and the garden court at the rear of the house, are also key 'spaces' that are central to the layout of the house. The scale and nature of these clearings add to the sense of spatial progression throughout the house, integrating the experience of interior and exterior spaces into a harmonious sequence. Condition The house remains in its near original condition, including the retention of its original colour scheme inside and out, built-in furniture in the form of bookshelves and cupboards, and fittings (bathroom, kitchen, lights, etc), and some of the original furniture (although not designed by Alington) has been retained by the current owners. The landscaping and outbuildings are still in much the same condition as when the Alington family was in residence. Comparative Information. The use of post and beam construction places this building amongst a small number of similar pavilion houses in New Zealand, including other Wellington examples by contemporaries James Beard (Beard House, 1955) and Bill Toomath (McKay House, 1962). Of these houses, the Alington house is the only example that has not been significantly altered. The Alington house shows the influence of the house that James Beard had designed for his family in 1955. The Beard house, situated on a bush-clad section in the same area of Karori as the Alington house, also takes the form of a flat-roofed Modernist pavilion. Despite some obvious superficial similarities (the overhanging flat roof, board-and-batten cladding punctuated by large areas of timber-framed glazing, clear articulation of post and beam structural system) the houses are very different, especially in key areas such as planning, proportion, and relationship to the landscape. The Beard house (now much altered) responds to its geometric logic in a much freer manner than the discipline of the Alington house The spatial arrangement of the former exists in spite of the structural module (based on the square), whereas at the Alington house much care has been taken to integrate the structural module (based on the Golden Section) with the organisation of the spaces within (see Figures 24 & 25 of the registration report). This means that the spaces at the Alington house, being determined by the carefully proportioned rhythm of the structural organisation, maintain a calmly ordered and legible consistency throughout. Differences in the response to the bush-clad context also mark these houses - where the Beard house sits elevated within the regenerating bush, the Alington house takes advantage of its low slung nature to become more integrated with its surroundings. The area in front of the main entry appears as a small 'clearing' after the narrow bush path that leads up to the site and the house; it effectively creates the sensation of a 'room' in the manner of the hallway/foyer, where one waits before being invited into the house proper. Similarly the garden court at the back of the house is another carefully proportioned clearing that forms a spatial continuation of the volumes within the house itself. A third Wellington pavilion, the McKay house designed by William Toomath, also employs many of the devices found in the Beard and Alington houses. It also features a bush-setting, prismatic flat-roofed form (minus the overhang), and vertical board-and-batten cladding. Present also is the free-standing post and beam structural system. Like the Alington house, which has a semi-height brick wall as a spatial divider between the living areas, the McKay house encloses its lounge with semi-height walls. Where Toomath paints his white, Alington allows the brick to retain its phenomenological warmth, combining it with the fireplace and kitchen to reinforce the 'memory' of the familial hearth. Toomath designed a compact house that gave the impression of spaciousness by the "planning the interior as a single continuous space, divided by only a few solid elements". Nevertheless, the commonalities between the McKay and Alington houses extend to the alternating structural rhythm of minor and major bays (although the beams run across the McKay house), the formal symmetry, and centrality of the living spaces. The northern elevation of both houses reveals both the similarities between the two plans, as well as the significant generating role of the actual plan itself. Unlike the Alington house however, the spatial arrangement of the McKay house is defined by its circulatory layout. This opportunity arises out of the separation of the spatial and structural systems that is more akin to the Beard house than the Alington house. It does however, mean that the repose that is achieved through a consistent integration of these systems is not as evident at the McKay house. The three houses show different approaches to what is essentially the same formal typology: the Modernist pavilion that has its roots in the work of Mies van der Rohe. Mies's Farnsworth house of 1950 is effectively a rationalised abstraction of the house, where even interior walls are deemed superfluous. Beard, Alington, and Toomath, each supplement this rationalisation with a well-studied program for living that allows 'Miesian abstraction' to function as 'family home', or in the case of the McKay house, as the home of a social professional couple. In these houses, Toomath (who was a member of the Group during the 1940s, and a signatory to the manifesto), Beard, and Alington, employed reveal a less selective reading of the Architectural Group's ideas, valuing the aspects of 'standard Modernist' ideology that are generally overlooked in contemporary readings of their manifesto. They sought to create architecture that was internationalist in ideology and expression, but also appropriate to the conditions and building capabilities of this country. It should be noted that the Wellington Architectural Centre was a key part of all three architect's background experience. An adherence to a purer Modernist rhetoric was fostered at the Centre, in part by the presence of the European émigrés such as Plischke and Newman who were influential members. The same can be said of the Ministry of Works under Gordon Wilson in the 1950s, where both Beard and Alington were employed. However, as Porsolt points out in his review of Living with 50 Architects, "styles overlap". The line between the New Zealand Modernist pavilions illustrated here and the 'elegant shed' that consciously attained to a particular idea of New Zealandness, is at times slim. Houses by Don Donnithorne, Derek Wilson (Toomath's partner in practice), and James Hackshaw (Reynolds and Hackshaw were both members of the Group during the 1940s) are as much shed as pavilion, demonstrating that the two typologies are not mutually exclusive. The three Wellington pavilions however, display a high degree of resolution in terms of both architectural refinement and functional planning that left little room for further typological development of the New Zealand Modernist pavilion. The Alington house in particular bears testament to elegance and refinement of this typology, through both the skill of its architect and his deep consideration of proportion, planning, and detail, and by virtue of it remaining in its original condition. Sadly, this is not the case for either of the Beard and McKay houses, both of which have been significantly altered to the degree where it is difficult to identify the original architectural form and spatial arrangement.