John Wilfred Manning (12 October 1928 – 8 October 2021) was a New Zealand architect from

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

. He is well known for a wide variety of designs including houses (particularly his own house at Stanley Bay, Cathcart House ( Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) Supreme Award 2006), and large commercial buildings. He was a fellow of the NZIA and was the recipient of its highest honour, the Gold Medal, in 2011.

Early life

Manning was born on 12 October 1928. He grew up in Devonport and Takapuna, and was educated at

St Peter's College, Auckland , seal_image = , image = St Peter's College, Auckland; Bro O'Driscoll Building.JPG , image_size = 270px , caption = St Peter's College (Bro. O'Driscoll Building, 2009) (constructed 1939) , motto = la, Amare et Servire , m ...

Projects

Manning's many projects include three which are particularly prominent.

AMP Building, Auckland

Manning designed one of the first Ludwig Mies van der Rohe style skyscrapers built in New Zealand, the AMP Building (1962 – Thorpe, Cutter, Pickmere & Douglas) on the corner of

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

and Victoria Streets, Auckland. Revolutionary features, for its time, include structure based on a concrete frame, sheathed with a curtain wall consisting of aluminium frames clad with stainless steel, and glazed with units of heat-absorbing glass and green opaque

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s. The ground floor columns are clad with black ebony granite.

Majestic Centre, Wellington

The

Majestic Centre The Majestic Centre, designed by Jack Manning of Manning Mitchell in association with Kendon McGrail of Jasmax Architects, was completed in 1991. The main building of the Majestic Centre is the Majestic Tower which is the tallest building in Well ...

(1989–1991), a large commercial complex is located close to, and visible from,

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...

's Civic Square. The Majestic Tower rises from Boulcott Street and is very prominent, especially at night when its horizontally spread fan of metal rods tipped with powerful light bulbs is illuminated. Its three-story podium, forming a street frontage to

Willis Street Willis Street is a prominent street in the central business district of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Along with Courtenay Place, Manners Street and Lambton Quay, the lower reaches of Willis Street form part of the "Golden Mile ...

, is split at midpoint by an open six-storied gallery linked to the base of the tower. The street frontage incorporates five distinct buildings: the

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means 'frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

of Preston Meats; a newly inserted three-storeyed building of no particular quality; the massive central entry topped with a metal and glass canopy; and a flat granite surface glazed above, which finally slopes away to Dr Henry Pollen's House designed by William Turnbull whose style is exuberantly French Empire but built in wood. This great house is located on the corner site, moved down from further up Boulcott Street. On Willis St, granite colonnades, ended before Turnbull's house and leading to shops behind, providing pedestrian shelter along the frontage. The colonnades were subsequently built in.

University of Auckland School of Music

The School of Music (1980) (designed with David Mitchell) represents a departure from the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ...

norm of that period, although in a completely different post-modernist style. The building won the NZIA supreme national award in 1986, and in 2013 received an enduring architecture award from the NZIA.

Other projects

* Auckland Central Library *

Auckland College of Education The Auckland College of Education, earlier known as the Auckland Training College and the Auckland Teachers' Training College, was a teachers' college in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. It was established in 1881 and was based in the Aucklan ...

Epsom Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. ...

, Auckland *Cathcart House *Manning House

Later life

Manning died on 8 October 2021, aged 92 years.

Notes

References

*Julia Gatley (ed), Long Live the Modern: New Zealand’s New Architecture 1904–1984, Auckland University Press, Auckland. *Erroll J Haarhoff, Guide to the Architecture of Central Auckland, Balasoglou Books, 2006. *Peter Shaw, A History of New Zealand Architecture, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 2003.

External links

New Zealand Institute of Architects 2011 Gold Medal: Jack Manning
(retrieved 16 February 2017) {{DEFAULTSORT:Manning, Jack 1928 births 2021 deaths New Zealand architects University of Auckland alumni People from Auckland People educated at St Peter's College, Auckland University of New Zealand alumni Fellows of the New Zealand Institute of Architects Recipients of the NZIA Gold Medal