NZ Visual Diary - entry 193
entrance - Espano Flats
At the southern gateway to Myers Park and just behind the St Kevins Arcade on Karangahape Road sits a lovely building of 12 self-contained flats designed by one of Auckland’s important early 20th century architects A. Sinclair O’Connor.
My image is a detail of an entrance to the building that I found captivating.
Built in 1927-8 to a design by architect A. Sinclair O’Connor, the imposing four-storey Spanish Mission-style Espano Flats in Poynton Terrace has architectural and aesthetic significance for its intact and visually striking form, its setting among subtropical palms, and proximity to St Keven’s Arcade (1923-6) on Karangahape Road, a significant Auckland heritage streetscape.
The distinctive block of twelve self-contained flats reflects increasing urbanisation in 1920s and 1930s society and private sector initiatives to capitalise on providing housing for an expanding clerical and professional workforce in New Zealand’s larger cities. Espano’s siting on the boundary of Myers Park, an area cleared of slum housing over a decade before, demonstrate early town philosophies relating to modern living and enjoyment of amenities.
Tenants who could afford to do so, deserted boarding houses for fashionable flats that offered greater independence and privacy within walking distance of city workplaces and amenities. Underway by September 1927, the four-storey brick and ferro-concrete block was among Auckland’s largest building projects reported for 1927. Local architect A. Sinclair O’Connor (d.1945), had previously designed of a number of apartment blocks including what is said to be New Zealand’s first - Middle Courtville (1914).
A departure from his earlier designs, Espano’s Spanish Mission Revival style reflected the adoption of a popular domestic architecture of the south western United States in warmer centres in New Zealand and capitalised on the visual qualities of Myers Park where subtropical plantings including palms were foreseen as early as 1913.
Spanish Mission influences are evident in the building’s small narrow window spaces; the dominance of the wall massings; three grouped round-headed arches facing the park; and barley twist columns at the front entrance. Half-round tiles fringe the flat roof, a detail echoed in three dovecote chimney caps and a penthouse that housed a shared laundry. 1
Images of the building in its entirety can be seen here 2
Heritage New Zealand website < https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/2627/2627 >
Places NZ website < https://places.nz/places/nelson-city/the-glen/espano-flats-9820 >