NZ Visual Diary - entry 384

a left shoe on a street with right-footed architecture

The commercial and cultural architecture along Queen Street, the epicentre of Auckland’s city centre, traverse styles from Edwardian and Victorian to Neo-Classical and Beaux Arts to Art Deco and Modern.

The rooftops at 126-128 Queen Street stand out not so much because they are icons of a Modernist style, but more so because these geometric forms on dynamic and oblique axes are brashly discordant amidst the refined and settled structures of a previous century’s sensibility that otherwise populate the northern-most blocks of Queen Street.

I am amused and delighted whenever I pass the rooftop pair of coffee table coasters. I enjoy a panorama of architectural styles within a central city. A mix of architectural styles, each in reaction to a current standard and imposition of a new orthodoxy, makes for a visually engaging streetscape.