A Belleknowes house designed by Warren & Mahoney in 1959 is an important early example of the architects' work, writes Michael Findlay, in a new book, Modern: New Zealand Homes from 1938-1977.
Set on the high ridge overlooking central Dunedin, the house designed for Ian and Margaret Rutherford in 1959 completed a trio of important projects by the then newly formed Christchurch partnership of Warren & Mahoney.
The others are the house for Miles Warren's parents in Fendalton (1960) and the house for Ronald Ballantyne, also in Fendalton (1959).
Both of these were essentially family commissions and enabled the architects to work through a new set of design ideas in the Christchurch suburbs with a consistent material palette.
Unpainted concrete block was still considered an aesthetically challenging material, and the low-pitched gables and grey-tiled roofs looked barn-like in comparison to the framed construction and single-pitch roofs used by other modern architects.
It is unusual that the Rutherford House is not in Christchurch, and perhaps more significant now that so many of Warren & Mahoney's early buildings have been damaged or lost in the earthquakes.
This Dunedin house carries the strong imprint of Maurice Mahoney and Miles Warren's rethinking of New Zealand domestic modernism.
Warren had graduated from the Auckland University College School of Architecture and practised briefly in Christchurch, before travelling to England in 1953.
Scandinavia was the real destination as, like many Auckland students, Warren was impressed by the sensitive but austere work of Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl and Gunnar Asplund.
He and his fellow Scandinavian enthusiasts, a southern cohort that included Dunedin's Ted McCoy and Invercargill's Lew Simpson, all knew something about designing for the cooler climates of their home cities.
They may have been dubbed the ''Swede-weeds'' by their peers, who were more influenced by the lightweight buildings of the American West Coast, but Northern European models made a lot of sense in small Antipodean cities, where snow was an occasional event and winter evenings were long and dark.
Warren suggests that the firm's houses at this time were essentially Danish in character. That meant parallel wings, separated by a small entrance link.
One side contained living room, dining room and kitchen, while the other wing - the larger of the two - housed bathrooms and bedrooms.
The Rutherford House differs, as it is less evenly balanced. The living room takes up the whole of one wing and is linked across the plan by a short stair that arrives at the dining room and separate kitchen.
Bedrooms and bathroom are off a long hallway with a projecting bay window halfway along, for light.
The entrance is one further half-level down and opens to the rear and under the house.
This innovative use of a tight and gently sloping site gives the Rutherford House a distinctive spatial feeling missing from the Fendalton houses on their larger, level sections.
The compact wing allows a private courtyard garden viewed from the living room and hall. The visitor walks up into the house towards a full-height window that frames the garden and hallway bay window.
These layered intersections, both vertical and horizontal, are witty and somewhat unexpected, a clever play on the serious-minded Swedes.
Warren himself dubbed this series of designs the ''Pixie'' houses, due to their modest scale and simple forms.
The living room is closed off by a long, single panel slider, enabling the space to be completely isolated from the rest of the house.
Full-height windows in the gable are contrasted by the solid block wall and cantilevered fireplace at the other end.
The room is long enough to function as two spaces. The Rutherfords had it arranged so that they could enjoy the sun during the day but could move further down the room during the evening and face the hearth.
The room is sheltered by a deep veranda, open and full width, like a whare.
The Scandinavian influence is paired with a sensitivity to local context and the early history of colonial building, which was coming back into view in the late 1950s.
This is not the cheerful pastiche of jumbled cottage forms that proliferated later in the 1960s, but rather a cool and detached reappraisal of space.
The low rooms have a similar scale to early cottages, not the lofty and somewhat decadent volumes of villa houses.
As with many houses from this time, the bedrooms are small but fitted with the thoughtful and spatially efficient storage that was a feature of Warren & Mahoney designs.
The kitchen has a hinged work table and flush-fronted drawers so that handles do not intrude on the tight space.
Typically, the plans ran to many sheets, with Warren instructing the builders down to the last detail, including how the palings of the fence should be painted.
In the late 1990s the Rutherford family sold the house to the current owner, who has maintained all of the significant design features, including lighting and wall coverings.
Additions have been made with a full understanding of materials and with careful handling of Warren & Mahoney's distinctive imprint.
This is a challenge, with the pressure to improve houses of this era with new kitchens and bathrooms.
It is far from a museum, however, and responds well to modern life, with a long lifespan ahead of it.
The Rutherfords were in their 50s when the house was built, and it sits squarely between Edwardian Dunedin and the present, while looking forward to many further years of life and use.
The book
Modern: New Zealand Homes from 1938-1977, edited by Jeremy Hansen, published by Random House NZ, is out now. RRP $75.
