Lately I’ve been noticing a series of small planes around central New Plymouth. Not the airborne type, or the woodworking type, but the spatial type – architectural to be more specific. Although in this case I think they’re more a factor of architectural oversight.
For example, there’s a fire escape coming out of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery that has resulted in a small – less than a metre square I’d estimate – vertical plane interrupting the roof of a neighbouring cafe. Atop the former White Hart Public Bar is another – this on a 45 degree angle. The Vero building has a former signage box that is now plain white, looming over the pavement four stories up.
These are generally exterior concessions to interior function – bastions of what Douglas Coupland calls the Emperors New Mall – where the inside of the building is intricately designed at the expense of the exterior.
So why don’t we highlight and celebrate these tiny spaces?
I propose identifying half a dozen or so and painting them high-gloss gold.
Why gold? Gold is the colour of winners, and 2008 New Plymouth was judged the world’s best small city and the best place to live in New Zealand, despite these architectural anomalies.
Gold also sits alongside the impending Len Lye Centre, with its epicly reflective stainless steel shell, echoing the precious metal facade and reflecting it on a number of buildings throughout the city.
It has the capacity to tidy up tired buildings, establish a connect-the-dots tourism trail, take on countercultural iconography (I'm thinking of the Invader tile pieces around the world) or at the very least make people say “Huh?”
And really, what more could we ask of our city’s building stock?
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