Thoughts on the Wellywood Sign

So, on the face of it, there have been some huge criticisms about the Wellywood sign that is being erected in Wellington City.

The complaints mostly consist of the sign being tacky and cheap, and giving a bad image of the city from this. While others would argue that the sign is a waste of money considering how many other considerations there are in Wellington city. Yet, Wellington is undeniably successful because of what WETA Workshops and other film studios has accomplished in the city, and the whole country. The sign is a natural extension of this celebration.

 Verily, it would change the architecture and landscape of Wellington. The first hill that is seen when flying down into Wellington would be with these words written in bold. My biggest issue is probably that it is an ugly hillside, and resembles more of a deserted shipyard as opposed to the glamour of Hollywood.

I just want to point out another piece of foreign architecture in Wellington: The State Insurance Tower.

 

Finally inhabited in 1987, after more than 10 years of union action about the steel that it was constructed from, it was a distinctly influenced by American upmarket office architecture. It is the sort of building that you would find in every large commercial city–the Seagram in Chicago an example of such buildings, and the Bank of China in Hong Kong. The scariest thought is that at the time of construction the building towered 2 times the size of the other buildings surrounding.

 

The criticism towards the building was very angry, the rapidly changing Wellington skyscape caused the public to rise to action. As well as the architectural critics, Sir Miles Warren described the building as an opportunity lost–while Roger Walker described the building was designed by “philistines”.  Moreover, if we could call the Wellywood sign tacky, Stuart Niven called the State Insurance Building as a “budget basement Mies-Van-Der Rohe” as a  reference to Rohe, who was the pioneer of skyscrapers in the world.

Is the Wellywood sign following the same path as these?

 

Resulting from these criticisms, the changes to the building have been great, seemingly in reaction. The breezy forecourt with the pyramidal canopy has now been converted into a retail area to reduce the wind uplift.  Bank of New Zealand itself has moved its head office to the Wellington waterfront with large translucent windows that give a transparency to the operations of the bank, in stark contrast to the impersonal sheer walls of the B.N.Z. building (Figure 5, 6). There is little evidence of the Bank that remains in the building, having sold off its naming rights to the building, and moving its customer centre across the road on Willis Street.

 

A foreign concept stolen from Hollywood, to celebrate the birth of the film industry in New Zealand is no different from celebrating the economic growth of Wellington through the construction of “Darth Vader’s pencilbox”. Surely the airport would recognize that this is history repeating itself surely.

 

How would the airport in supporting this venture react when has such monumental opposition before the sign has even been erected?

The Decline of the Church of England

The past royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton brought the attention back to the Westminster Abbey in which they were married.

The building, in fact has a grand history behind it, and has by no means a sorry history. The church having been born “through the influences of St Alban, St Illtud, St Ninian, St Patrick and, later, St Augustine, St Aidan and St Cuthbert” These are not the weakest of Christians in the history of Christianity. Beginning as a humble church in 604AD built on an island on the River Thames, the building was refounded in 960AD. The church was supposed to have been miraculously consecrated by St Peter from his grave, this is something that the Pope pointed out in his address to the Abbey last September.

The architectural context of the Abbey is important, situated within the spiritual heart of London – the Parliamentary buildings were built close to this building, signifying the comparative importance of religion over politics. I am not going to comment whether this rings true today, but the building began as a beacon of light in those days, the shining diamond of the Church of England. But now, it seems to only be used as a meaningless beacon for no truth at all. That one day, royalty would get married inside, yet on Sunday and whatever day, they would struggle to be full of people singing hymns to God again. The statistics are dire, in only 3% of England attending the church of which is the established church of the country. Furthermore, this statistic is a once a monthly membership, which is hardly dedication.

“When a church forfeits its doctrinal convictions and then embraces ambiguity and tolerates heresy, it undermines its own credibility and embraces its own destruction.”