New Zealand at Home

2005 DOCUMENTARY SERIES - 8 30min EPISODES

Is the battle to save New Zealand's 20th century architectural heritage being lost?

This 8 part documentary series shows us what it means to be a New Zealander and to build, decorate and inhabit the New Zealand dream…
Leading historian Douglas Lloyd Jenkins makes the case for ensuring that the 20th century house does not become a victim of a wholesale redevelopment and individual re-modelling by celebrating the New Zealand house over the past 100 years.
He tells the story of the New Zealand house and those "acts of cultural radicalism", not only by indigenous architects, but by the many craftspeople and designers who made significant contributions to New Zealand's cultural development. Peeling back the layers of a social history, Douglas explores how we have lived, and continue to live, in environments created for us, united in the pursuit of the contemporary New Zealand home.
At last a series of insightful programmes that celebrate our house – where it has come from and where it's going. A house is more than it's walls. A house is history made into fact.

Episode 1: On the Beach
Maori and Pakeha, we arrived on the beach with no idea of a New Zealand architecture – this is the story of the earliest New Zealand houses and how two different peoples came together.
Episode 2: The Villa
The villa; we all love them, except for those that hate them! This is the story of the ups and downs of the Villa.
Episode 3: The Principled House
The Arts & Craft movement brought with it the idea that a good house can encourage us to live better. This episode looks at how good living, health and fitness created the Bungalow.
Episode 4: Hollywood and Back
Inspired by the movies, New Zealand opts for glamour or at least the illusion of it – from the Spanish Mission and Art Deco styles of Napier in the 1930's to the State house.
Episode 5: Lessons in Living
New approaches to architecture sourced in Europe were imported and soon adapted to local conditions. From the icy white cubes of the early modern to the black creosote of the architects of the 1940's and 50's.
Episode 6: Modernism Triumphant
To get people to be enthusiastic about fighting a war you had to promise a better peace. Part of this was to offer a dream home to those that returned.
Episode 7: Going Bush
It was the 1960s and 70s and 'everyone' went hippy. How earthy can a house be?
Episode 8: Pacific Home
Post modernism changed what a house looked like, but in the change, the New Zealand house finds its feet or does it?

Based on Douglas Lloyd Jenkins' Montana Award Winning Book
At Home - A Century of New Zealand Design.

Written & Presented by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
Director: Dan Salmon
Producer: Michele Fantl
Co Producer: Peter Wells
Production Manager: Michele Driscoll
Researcher: David Thomas
DOP: Craig Wright
Sound: Phil Donovan
Editor: Emma Patterson
Online Editor: Peter Roberts (RPM Pictures)
Composer: Phil Brownlee
Post Sound: Dick Reade Audio
Graphics: Adam Sheffield & John Payne
Colourist: Clare Burlinson
Stills: Lisa Morrison
Network Executive: Jude Callen

Screened as a TVNZ Charter series, beginning July 2006.

Download the study guide here.
Watch a clip here.
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