The text below is from the original report considered at the time of registration.
The site
The Jean Batten Place Departmental Building is located on 733 square metres of land, fronting onto Fort Street (16.19 m.), Jean Batten Place (41.82 m.) and Shortland Street (18.99 m.), and contained in Lot 1 DP 129112. This parcel of land is a corner site between Shortland Street and Fort Street, bounded to the east by Jean Batten Place, and to the west by the Bank of New Zealand building. The old foreshore once extended in to the site prior to the reclamation of Fort Street.
Auckland's first timber building, the Government Store, lay close to the site, as marked by an Auckland City historic place plaque attached to the Jean Batten Place façade of the building. The Store occupied the land that is today bounded by Queen Street, Shortland Street, Fort Street and Jean Batten Place. The structure was associated with a market place.
When Auckland became a Bborough in 1851, the market place was vested in the Mayor and Aldermen. In 1875, the area reverted to the Crown under the Abolition of [Auckland] Provinces Act, but was immediately retrieved by the City under The Auckland City Endowments and Reserves Act. In 1883, the New Zealand Insurance Company was granted a 50 -year lease on the area, at the annual rental of £2,810. To fulfil the terms of its lease, the Company erected an imposing building in 1886 and, in 1921, sold the unexpired portion of its lease to the Victoria Arcade Company Limited. This building had shops on the ground floor with an arcade running from Shortland Street to Fort Street, known as the Victoria Arcade. The arcade was modified before the lease expired in 1933. On the building was a plaque, commemorating that the site marked the foreshore of Auckland in 1844.
Auckland's first brick post office, then combined with a custom house, was designed by Edward Rumsey in Victorian Gothic Revival style. Commissioned in 1864 and completed during 1868, it was built on the block adjoining the N.Z. Insurance Company's land. Two months before the building was completed, it was described in detail as having "'a number of finely carved figure heads [by sculptor Anton Teutenberg] ornamenting the façade representing the Queen, Prince Albert, Prince of Wales, Empress Alexandra, the Governor, the Bishop of New Zealand, chief [Paul], the late chief William Thompson and another celebrated chief and his wife.'" Rumsey's Shortland Street Post Office was demolished in 1936 to make way for a new street (Jean Batten Place) and the Jean Batten Place Departmental Building.
George Graham, in a detailed newspaper story in June 1939 referring to the "'contemplated Jean Batten Place"', wrote about '"pioneer memories of early Auckland'". He said: '"At this spot (then the beach foreshore) the original settlers formed their camps in 1840 .... An old sketch of the camps, showing the Government store and settlers' tents, may be found reproduced in Brett's "Early History of New Zealand" (page 546), which shows also the old Maori track leading from the beach front, past the camps and inland in the direction along the line of what is now practically High Street. At the rear of the camps the track joined with another leading from the Waihorotiu Creek, where Queen Street now runs, and passing up the slope along what is now Shortland Street.'
'"It is interesting to know that on this site of Jean Batten Place also camped the last Maori Ngapuhi war party to these parts, under the chief Pomare, in 1826. On the track was fought a battle when Pomare attacked and assaulted a pallisaded Ngati-Paoa fort on Britomart headland.'
'"For many years in early Auckland these old Maori tracks were still used by the settlers and thus became in time generally speaking, the recognized line of many of to-day's leading thoroughfares, being adapted as such in Felton Matthew's original survey of 1840. For some reason, however, he ignored this particular track past the Government store - and in course of time the old post office and adjoining buildings covered the whole area.'
'"Therefore, if that ancient right-of-way is again available for public use, it will be reviving once more that ancient track- already ancient long before Pomare no doubt passed along it in 1826."'
Construction History
The Jean Batten Place Departmental Building was constructed to help meet the needs of an expanding state service during the time of the First Labour Government (1935-1949). Its position in the centre of Auckland's main commercial district followed that of previous, important government buildings such as the Government Store and the Post Office, as noted above. A large structure was initially conceived on the site in 1934-1935 as a means of housing civil servants who had previously worked from disparate leased premises throughout Auckland. The specific design, construction and early use of the current building, however, took place under New Zealand's first Labour Government, elected in 1935.
Following the traumas of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, Labour invested heavily in public works including the construction of government buildings as a means of reducing unemployment and stimulating the economy. They also expanded the civil service to administer greater state regulation. Increased regulation was part of a radical social and economic agenda under the premiership of Michael Joseph Savage (1935-1940), which included - amongst other actions - a programme of state house construction, the nationalisation of broadcasting and guaranteed prices for dairy products. Further centralisation occurred in the 1940s under Savage's successor, Peter Fraser.
The building was constructed as one of two new major Departmental Buildings for the government, one in each of the main administrative centres of Auckland and Wellington. While the Stout Street Departmental Buildings in Wellington was to be the largest office block in New Zealand, the Jean Batten Place Building appears to have been the first that was fully completed. Smaller offices were also built in other centres, including Napier and Palmerston North.
In 1935, it was estimated that the new Departmental Building in Auckland would be completed by January 1938. In February 1936, the contract for demolition and site clearance was let and the site cleared by August that year, four months past its target date. Design of the new building appears to have been running behind time as the Public Works Department's plans are dated June 1937. It appears that the building was conceived as consciously 'modern', promoting a sense of new ideas and a break from the past, as well as modelling high quality working environment conditions for its intended occupants. This was consistent with Labour Government philosophy of the time, which sought to promote a belief that New Zealand was entering a new age of humanitarianism, encapsulated by the catchphrase 'onwards and upwards'.
The tender for the building's foundation and steel frame was let to The Fletcher Construction Company Ltd who, on 23 December 1937 began excavation work for the foundations using a Bucyrus Erie steam shovel. The site would prove to be a challenge in the foundation stage. Mass concrete foundations from the former Shortland Post Office building had to be removed by hand, Auckland City Council not countenancing the use of explosives or a 'heavy pointed tool dropped from height', because of the perceived danger to the adjoining Victoria Arcade building.
Fletcher Construction had previously been involved in a number of Government contracts. By March 1937 it had two state-built joinery factories working 24 hours a day producing timber for new state houses. James Fletcher had also drawn up a scheme for state housing at Orakei in Auckland, and Miramar and the Hutt Valley in Wellington, and succeeded in capturing most of the Orakei and Miraimar contracts. Having just finished the Wellington Railway Station in 1937, the company embarked construction of the Departmental Building in Stout Street. These contracts were important for the consolidation of Fletchers as one of New Zealand's major building firms.
The Jean Batten Place Departmental Building used a steel skeleton frame, encased in concrete in a manner similar to that used on the Chief Post Office (1909) and the nearby former NZ Guardian Trust building (1914-18). To reduce on-site construction noise in this office precinct, the specification called for the frame to have shop fabricated riveted joints but with welded field connections, as was also the case with Mair's Stout Street Departmental Building in Wellington (1937-1942). As early as 1936-1937 the Government Architect had been investigating the use of welded connections rather than riveted joints to eliminate noise associated with the construction of steel buildings in built-up areas. Their use in the Jean Batten Place Building is believed to be an early example of their application in New Zealand for the construction of a large-scale building. Arc-welded steel was first used in the Southern Hemisphere in 1932, and by 1937 the Department of Public Works - who were leaders in New Zealand building technology - had made comprehensive investigations into the use of welding on large-scale buildings and were preparing specifications for use, which they imagined would enable welding to become the standard practice of the Department. The use of on-site welding on the Jean Batten Place structure is likely to be a very early occurrence in a New Zealand context.
During erection, this building drew crowds of sightseers. The steel skeleton framework was completed to the upper seventh level by late 1938, after which work ceased for some months while the plans were revised and tenders sought for the main contract. At the time the building was referred to as '"the world's biggest Meccano Set"'.
In its ensuing phase of construction, The Jean Batten Place Departmental Building illustrates the implementation of new policies that gave preference to the use of New Zealand materials and products in construction projects, as the Labour Government took steps to stimulate, diversify and insulate the economy following the dDepression by controlling exports, overseas funds and imports. The plans for the Jean Batten and the Stout Street Departmental Buildings had to be revised in order to reduce the quantity of imported materials. Subsequently, fresh tenders were obtained and the contracts were finalised in accordance with the amended conditions. The tender for the main contract closed on 14th March 1939 and was awarded to Williamson Construction Company Ltd of Christchurch. In addition to interiors finished with native timbers, the building was to incorporate three types of New Zealand building -stone: cream-coloured Hanmer 'Marble' in the Fort and Shortland Street foyers; Coromandel Tonalite on the ground floor external facing; and plastered Putaruru Ignimbrite on the upper floors. Putaruru Ignimbrite was extracted commercially from several quarries south of Putaruru in the 1930s to 1950s and was used in a number of other Government buildings constructed at this time including the Dunedin Post Office; the State Insurance Building, Christchurch; the Stout Street Departmental Building and the National Museum building, in Wellington. The cladding of many of these buildings has been replaced because the absorbent nature of the stone has caused it to deteriorate as a result of the action of soluble salts leaching into the mortar and adjacent concrete.
The Jean Batten Place Departmental Building was finally completed by the beginning of June 1942, five years after construction began.
Jean Gardner Batten, aviatrix and celebrity
Jean Gardner Batten was born in Rotorua on 15 September 1909, the only daughter of a dentist, Frederick Harold Batten, and his wife, Ellen (Nellie) Blackmore. The family moved to Auckland in 1913 where Jean was exposed to aviation, watching flying boats at the Walsh Brothers flying school located at the former Melanesian Mission site at Kohimarama. In 1929, Ellen Batten took Jean to Sydney and arranged for her to fly in the Southern Cross with Charles Kingsford-Smith.
In early 1930, Batten and her mother financed a trip to England by selling Jean's piano. Jean Batten learnt to fly at the London Aeroplane Club, gaining her licence in December that year, and commenced planning to break the solo England to Australia record set by Amy Johnson. Batten gained a B commercial pilot's licence in December 1932, and with borrowed money purchased a de Havilland Gypsy Moth. After two unsuccessful attempts, both ending in crashes, Batten flew from London to Darwin in 14 days, 22½ hours and became a world celebrity. She had broken Johnson's record by four days, and with her return flight to England later in the same year became the first female pilot to fly from Britain to Australia and back.
Batten was to make another spectacular solo flight. In a new Percival Gull 6 monoplane she flew from England to South America, becoming the first woman to pilot herself across the South Atlantic and setting world records for the ocean crossing and overall flight. She was subsequently awarded the Harmon International Trophy for the most outstanding flight by a woman in 1935, and was also named one of five Daily Express Women of the Year.
As Jean Batten CBE, she emerged from seclusion in October 1936 to undertake her longest journey, the first ever direct flight from England to New Zealand, completed in 11 days 45 minutes.
The following year, at the age of 28, Batten made her last long-distance flight. She flew from Australia to England in 5 days, 18 hours establishing a solo record and becoming the first person to hold England-Australia records in both directions simultaneously.
Jean Batten Place
The 1936 demolition of the former Shortland Street Post Office, which had occupied the whole block of land between the Victoria Arcade, on Queen Street, and the National Bank on Shortland Street, allowed Auckland City to create a new street, named after pioneer aviator Jean Batten.
While the 1844 view of Commercial Bay shows an access way parallel to the present Jean Batten Place, it was later to be occupied by the Shortland Street Post Office, leaving the only connection between Shortland and Fort Streets by way of Victoria Lane (running alongside the Victoria Hotel). Even this was to later disappear under a building.
A new thoroughfare was evidently conceived as part of the overall plans for the Departmental Building and its surroundings, and Jean Batten's arrival at Mangere at the end of her epic flight, resulted in the embryo street being named after her. The City of Auckland had previously agreed to pay the government £35,000 for a 40- foot- wide strip of land, to form a new city thoroughfare between Shortland and Fort Streets. At a civic reception held for Batten, three days after her arrival in Mangere on 16 October 1936, it was announced that '"the new street across the site of the old Shortland Street Post Office is to be named '"Jean Batten Place"' in honour of the famous aviatrix and a commemorative tablet is to be erected there to record her achievements."' In her immediate response, Jean Batten said: '" I hope it will be an inspiration to all who visit it, that it will remind them that we are embarked upon a new era in which air travel is the most modern form of transport and that it will make people more air-minded than they are at present."'
Following the reception, she visited the demolition site, where the new street was to be. A photograph of Jean Batten and the Mayor, Mr Ernest Davis, viewing the site was published along with her letter of thanks written later that day. She wrote expressing: '"...my deep sense of appreciation of the great honour conferred on me by the Auckland City Council. It perhaps falls to the lot of few people of my age to receive such honour at the hands of the city in which I have lived and been educated."' These were not just polite sentiments for public consumption, as she really did feel the street naming was a great compliment. In a private letter, written from Wellington on 26 October, Jean Batten wrote to a friend in Australia: '"... a busy thoroughfare in the city of Auckland is to be named 'Jean Batten Place' which I suppose is the highest tribute my home town can pay me."' By 1942, the new government building erected alongside the street had also formally incorporated her name in its title, with the adoption of the term, the 'Jean Batten Place Departmental Building'. This reference was preferred in spite of the main public entrances to the building being located on Fort Street and Shortland Street, and can be seen as associating the structure with contemporary New Zealand achievements and an element of glamour, appropriate to the modern design of the structure and the forward-looking policies of the incumbent government. Jean Batten personified modernity not only in her association with flight technology, but also as a glamorous woman who was pursuing an unorthodox goal.
Returning to London on yet another record-breaking flight in October 1937, Jean Batten was not to visit New Zealand again until 1969. One of the first things she did after arriving in Auckland was to visit 'her' Place. The New Zealand Herald again published a photo of her there, this time alongside the bronze-lettered street name and large bronze plaque, which had been proposed on that momentous civic occasion in 1936. Having made that first return home, Jean Batten remained living in the Canary Islands and later, Majorca, but she visited New Zealand often: she was here in 1969/70, 1977, 1979 and 1980, before she died in Majorca in 1982, aged 73. During her 1977 trip, she visited a mural of her Percival Gull that had been erected inside the building, and presented staff with a Commemorative Cover issued in 1976 by Britain's Royal Air Force Museum to mark the fortieth anniversary of her first flight to Auckland. Four years before this, in 1973, the building was renamed the Jean Batten State Building.
United States Navy
With the many delays in the construction of Jean Batten Place Departmental Building, it was not available for occupancy until the end of May 1942. At the time of the United States' entry into the Second World War in December 1941, therefore, the plan for thirteen Government Departments to be accommodated in Jean Batten Place, had still to be realised. It took until 1945 for all the intended occupants to move in. The building's first role was as the '"U.S. Naval Operating Base, Auckland, New Zealand"', established close to the Dilworth Building where U.S. Army personnel were located.
In February 1942 U. S. Pacific Command was allowed control of the building. Plans were drawn up at the end of February for construction of an air raid shelter in the basement. In March 'special' communications equipment was fitted to the upper level/roof and a U. S. Government telephone exchange installed on the fifth floor. Then U. S. Navy personnel '"first entered the building on 1 June 1942 and gradually extended, so they occupied all floors 1 to 7 and part of the ground floor. They had a 24 -hour electricity service during occupancy."' A bill was rendered to the U. S. Navy for electricity consumption. According to the Assistant Under-Secretary of Public Works in Wellington, referring to the question of a lease with the U.S. Government: '"there was apparently no agreement entered into with U.S. Forces with regard to their occupancy of the Departmental buildings in Jean Batten Place."'
Details of the occupation of the Departmental Buildings by the U.S. Navy may have been subject to wartime censorship. In 1942, the Minister of Public Works' statement to Parliament recorded the building at Jean Batten Place as '"now in occupation"', whereas, for the other public buildings included in the report, some comment was made on their occupants and/or facilities provided. A Home and Building article in June 1942 gives details of which Government Departments were going to be housed in the new building, down to the detail of which floor each was to occupy but makes no mention of the U.S. Navy.
The Post Office, named Auckland East, had moved into part of the ground floor in January 1942, even though the rest of the building was still unfinished. No official opening took place.
By November 1942 the Americans were in full possession of all floors above ground level, and control of the building was officially handed to U. S. Pacific Command in April 1943. The Post Office remained on the ground floor, with the U.S. Marine Corps, Central Communications U. S. Navy, U.S. Joint Purchasing Board and U. S. Red Cross located on the upper floors, the U. S. Naval Operating Base occupying the majority of the space.
During late 1944, there was a gradual release of accommodation by the U. S. Forces, with naval services withdrawing to U.S. Naval Barracks in Mechanics Bay. The U.S. Navy Public Works dismantled the signal tower and made the necessary restorations in the basement. The U. S. Marine Corps and Joint Purchasing Board remained at Jean Batten Place until well into 1945.
New Zealand Government Offices
From 1945, three years after construction finished, the Departmental Building was occupied by numerous Government Departments. Those intended to occupy the building, and indicated on the 1939 architect's plans included the following:
State Fire Office Ground floor and first floor, Shortland Street end
NZ Post Office Ground floor, Jean Batten Place
National Provident Fund Ground floor, Fort Street end
Births, Deaths & Marriages Balance of first floor
Education Department Second Floor
Child Welfare Second floor
Defence department Third floor
Transport Fifth floor (Jean Batten Place - Fort Street end)
Treasury Fifth floor (Shortland Street end /Jean Batten Place)
Government Analysts Seventh floor
Street Directories and a letter calculating shared electricity usage, suggest that during the war the building's ground floor was occupied by the State Fire Office and the New Zealand Government Provident Fund, in addition to the Post Office.
In accordance with the Labour Government's promises to improve conditions of employment in the public service (by restoration of salaries, pay rises, increased security for superannuation funds and implementation of a 40-hour, five-day working week with payment for overtime,)' the Jean Batten Place Departmental Building was designed to be a model work place. The building was: '...a shining example of modern functional architecture...affording ideal conditions for the occupants' with lifts and stairs giving 'access to the upper floors, which are equipped with all modern toilet facilities including hot water to the lavatory basins'. Notwithstanding the implication that the building was forward-looking in its facilities and the work environment provided, it did not anticipate the widespread entry of women into the workforce with the outbreak of war. Rather, its design reflected State Services Commission policy (introduced in 1917 and not reversed until 1948) not to appoint women clerical cadets to the public service. (Women could only be taken on, as temporary employees, in areas such as shorthand and typing.) This is evidenced by plans for the building which did not provide female toilets from the ground floor to the fifth floor inclusively. One (presumably) female toilet was provided in association with the cafeteria on the sixth floor; and the lavatory/cloakroom on the seventh floor (contained three lavatories and no urinals).
Following the War four floors of the Jean Batten Place Departmental Building were occupied by the Land and Income Tax Department and two by the Rehabilitation Department. The latter Department was responsible for seeing that 100,000 servicemen returning from the war were integrated back into New Zealand Society and would have been associated with the government's ambitious land settlement scheme putting servicemen onto farms of their own and in the promotion of new educational opportunities.
The building had been designed to enable the consolidation of different government offices in one building, a great convenience to the both the departments and the public. In the 1960s the building's tenants (in addition to the Post Office and the State Insurance Office) included the Auckland Youth Farm Settlement Scheme; the Education Department; the Vocational Guidance Centre; the Royal New Zealand Navy Recruiting Centre; Civil Aviation; the Ministry of Transport; New Zealand State Coal Mines; and the Mines Department. The Maori Affairs Department (by 1975 Maori and Pacific Island Affairs) became a tenant in 1966, occupying the fifth and sixth floors. Maori migration to urban areas had increased greatly after the Second World War (1939-45), and during the 1960s and 1970s New Zealand's Pacific Islands population increased rapidly as people immigrated in pursuit of better educational and employment opportunities. The Maori Land Court Room was located on the seventh floor and sittings appear to have been conducted there until 1978.
The Post Office expanded over time to occupy the whole of the ground floor. It was Auckland's only Post Office to issue vehicle registrations and in early 1970s, it expanded to provide Savings Bank services, with seven tellers. It was then New Zealand's busiest Post Office, having a monthly imprest of $36,000 worth of 3c and 4c stamps. With the sale of Post Office Savings Bank to ANZ Bank, the Jean Batten Place Post Office became an ANZ Postbank in 1988.
Sold by Government Property Services in 1989 the Jean Batten Place Departmental Building was converted into a 306-bed backpacker's hotel in 1991, and operated in that mode until May 2002, since when it has stood empty. In 2000, current owners, BNZ Properties (Auckland) Ltd were granted demolition consent for the building and the adjoining 80 Queen Street property.
