Moving architecture: relocation in the age of urban intensification
Conservation theory has long frowned on the relocation of historic buildings, finding it acceptable only as an alternative to demolition. However, given the accelerated rates of demolition that are resulting from urban intensification, relocation starts to seem more palatable. Indeed, are there conditions in which it can be celebrated?
This lecture focuses on relocation in Aotearoa New Zealand, where it is comparatively common. It discusses relevant history and theory and then the specific example of modern houses relocated from densifying suburban areas to outlying and rural plots. It explores the 2022 relocation of Group Architects’ Lush House (1954-55) from Remuera, Auckland, to Kerikeri, some four hours north, as a case study. What started as a pragmatic venture, to ensure a future for the house, with the cost of relocation to be recovered through its sale, turned into a “labour of love” for the owners and a home so successful on its new site that they determined to move there too, with no intention of selling. What can be learnt from such an exemplar, and what became of the Remuera site from which it was removed?
About the speaker
Julia Gatley, MArch (Well), PhD (Melb), is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, a Fellow of Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects, and a Life Member and the current President of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand. Her research interests include twentieth-century architecture, developments in heritage conservation and the context of modern urban planning. She has published four books with Auckland University Press. Her most recent book, co-authored with John H. Stubbs, William Chapman, and Ross King, is Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands: National Experiences and Practice (Routledge, 2024).
Professor Julia Gatley's public lecture and participation in the 2026 SAHANZ/AUHPH Absence Conference is supported by the Macgeorge Bequest at the University of Melbourne.