The Sutton House and Garden at 20 Templar Street, Christchurch, comprises a home studio designed and built in a local modernist style in 1963 for nationally renowned New Zealand artist, William (Bill) Alexander Sutton, and its integrally connected ‘modern garden’. Situated close to the looping Ōtākaro/Avon River, the general area has always been a seasonal food gathering space by Waitaha, Ngāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu. The Sutton House and Garden has aesthetic, architectural, cultural and historical significance as his purpose-built combined house and studio designed by sculptor Tom Taylor, with the garden designed, planted and maintained by Sutton himself. The interior and exterior of the dwelling and the integrated garden have high integrity and authenticity and convey with immediacy the way of life of one of New Zealand’s most important landscape artists, providing valuable context and insight into his work. The place has become a rare survivor within the Christchurch residential ‘red zone’ where almost all buildings have now been demolished. It is held in high community esteem and has social significance accordingly.
Born in Christchurch in 1917, Sutton was educated at the Canterbury College School of Art in the 1930s. He returned to teach at the School of Fine Arts in 1939 and remained there for 40 years. As a practising artist and teacher, Sutton was influential in promoting a nationalist style of painting combining local responses to landscape with international method. In 1963 Sutton’s colleague at the School of Fine Arts, Tom Taylor, a sculptor with architectural training, designed Sutton a combined home and studio at 20 Templar Street.
The location, orientation and light-filled design of the house enables access to and views of the established lush garden. Containing more than 30 specimen trees, a large brick courtyard, rock features and edging and paths laid by Sutton, the garden is integrally connected to the house. Stylistically the modernist house is a one and two storeyed timber structure with a mono-pitched roof. Its main façade fronts north, at right angles to the street, and has a two-storeyed living block at the east end and a spacious single storied studio/living room with projecting glasshouse at the west end. The form, spaces, materials, structural elements, ceilings, walls, joinery, doors, fittings, hardware, stairs, balustrades and steps, built-in furniture, finishes, flooring and design elements, including in-built tapa cloth and plaster cast inset in the studio, retain a high degree of authenticity. The design and layout of the Sutton House and Garden is largely intact and is little changed since its early design and development.
Sutton created many of his mid to late career works in the studio at the house, including his landscape painting of the 1960s to 1980s in which he employed a greater level of abstraction on large canvases, facilitated by the open interior space of the studio. He remained at the house until his death in 2000. In 2002, Neil Roberts, at that time senior curator at the Christchurch Art Gallery, purchased the house from Sutton’s estate and in around 2006 updated the upstairs bathroom and made other minor changes at the south rear of the house. Although the building suffered minimal damage in the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, the surrounding riverside neighbourhood sustained significant land damage and the property was included within the residential ‘red zone’. While other such ‘red zoned’ buildings were acquired by the Crown and demolished the Sutton House was, through pressure by heritage advocates and the existence of a heritage covenant on the place, retained by the vested owner, Land Information New Zealand. In 2019-2020, repaired and restored, its ownership was transferred to the Christchurch City Council and it is leased to the Sutton Heritage House and Garden Charitable Trust.
Born in Christchurch in 1917, Sutton was educated at the Canterbury College School of Art in the 1930s. He returned to teach at the School of Fine Arts in 1939 and remained there for 40 years. As a practising artist and teacher, Sutton was influential in promoting a nationalist style of painting combining local responses to landscape with international method. In 1963 Sutton’s colleague at the School of Fine Arts, Tom Taylor, a sculptor with architectural training, designed Sutton a combined home and studio at 20 Templar Street.
The location, orientation and light-filled design of the house enables access to and views of the established lush garden. Containing more than 30 specimen trees, a large brick courtyard, rock features and edging and paths laid by Sutton, the garden is integrally connected to the house. Stylistically the modernist house is a one and two storeyed timber structure with a mono-pitched roof. Its main façade fronts north, at right angles to the street, and has a two-storeyed living block at the east end and a spacious single storied studio/living room with projecting glasshouse at the west end. The form, spaces, materials, structural elements, ceilings, walls, joinery, doors, fittings, hardware, stairs, balustrades and steps, built-in furniture, finishes, flooring and design elements, including in-built tapa cloth and plaster cast inset in the studio, retain a high degree of authenticity. The design and layout of the Sutton House and Garden is largely intact and is little changed since its early design and development.
Sutton created many of his mid to late career works in the studio at the house, including his landscape painting of the 1960s to 1980s in which he employed a greater level of abstraction on large canvases, facilitated by the open interior space of the studio. He remained at the house until his death in 2000. In 2002, Neil Roberts, at that time senior curator at the Christchurch Art Gallery, purchased the house from Sutton’s estate and in around 2006 updated the upstairs bathroom and made other minor changes at the south rear of the house. Although the building suffered minimal damage in the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, the surrounding riverside neighbourhood sustained significant land damage and the property was included within the residential ‘red zone’. While other such ‘red zoned’ buildings were acquired by the Crown and demolished the Sutton House was, through pressure by heritage advocates and the existence of a heritage covenant on the place, retained by the vested owner, Land Information New Zealand. In 2019-2020, repaired and restored, its ownership was transferred to the Christchurch City Council and it is leased to the Sutton Heritage House and Garden Charitable Trust.
