Boock on Queens Wharf

Richard Boock writes:

I’m sure the save-the-sheds faction are right when they speak of the lovely timbers and structural beams within the buildings, even though the ARC initially described them as cheap and nasty. Chairman Mike Lee said he changed his mind after discussing the issue with friends who were “heritage advocates”. That’s right, before you could say “indoctrinate”, the cheap and nasty had taken on “genuine heritage value”. Not even Paul the Octopus could have seen that coming.

It’s surprising too, that a place apparently to be preserved because of its heritage value has not even been listed with the Historic Places Trust. Its worth has been calculated, not by the official arbiters of such assets, but by a cabal of what sounds like the ARC chairman’s dinner guests. Somehow he was able to be persuaded that a spot of character, rather than an official judgement of historic value, was enough to make a couple of huts sacrosanct. …

As Paul Moon, an Auckland University of Technology Professor of History, wrote in the New Zealand Herald a week or so ago, “to elevate (the sheds) to anything even resembling architectural merit is disingenuous”. He reminded us that the structures were designed purely along functional lines at a time when “aesthetic appeal in industrial buildings was even less important than it is now”. He’s right, you know. We’re being led down the garden path by a collection of snooty zealots.

I’m picking up considerable backlash against the u-turn by the ARC. It may affect Mike Lee’s bid for a seat on the new Auckland Council.