Housing in New Zealand

Short Film (Full Length) – 1946

This 1946 film surveys New Zealand housing: from settler huts to Ernest Plischke’s modernist flats. Architect William Page bemoans sun-spurning Victorian slums with their unneeded “elaboration”. But more fretful than fretwork is a housing crisis that sees 26,000 families needing homes, with owning or renting out of reach of many. Michael Savage’s pioneering (but war-stalled) state housing scheme and newly-planned suburbs offer hope. Fed by wood and cement, NZ can build again with brio: “For a home is the basis of the simple things that make victory worthwhile.”

We will live with space about us and order, and room for the sun to get in. After 100 years we’re learning to build to suit our way of life. Here we have the simplicity and light and good design that we began with.
– From the narration