Richard Atkinson Abbott

Auckland Grammar School, main building, 1916

Obelisk on One Tree Hill, 1941

Richard Atkinson Abbott (born January 6, 1883 in Auckland ; † May 20, 1954 there ) was a New Zealand architect.

Early life

Abbott was born on January 6, 1883 in the Auckland district of Parnell. He was one of three children of the English-born farmer Samuel Litton Abbott and his Irish wife Constantia Sophia Atkinson. He received his education from 1894 to 1895 at St John's College and from 1896 to 1900 at King's College in the Auckland district of Auckland .

Career as an architect

Abbott began his professional career in the office of Charles Le Nevre Arnold . He used untreated wooden shingles on a large scale for the roofs and walls of his houses; his style shows American influences. He then worked for two years on a building in Bramham Park, Yorkshire, England.

He studied for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris . He then traveled to San Francisco , from where he returned to his homeland and in 1910 became a partner in the architecture office of his first employer. In 1913 he was registered as an architect under the New Zealand Institute of Architects Act, which came into force .

It is unclear what contribution the two partners made to the following works, in each case US influences remained unmistakable.

An important success for the office was winning the architecture competition in 1913 for the new construction of the Auckland Grammar School , which was designed in the Spanish mission style, which was popular on the west coast of the USA at the time. Abbott is credited with the idea of ​​using this style, then unknown in New Zealand, having seen similar structures in the United States.

In World War I served Abbott in the rank of lieutenant in the Motor Service Corps and then in the artillery of the garrison of Auckland.

From 1922 the partnership was responsible for the buildings of the new King's College campus in Middlemore in Otahuhu , which were built over the next three decades and which reflect the style of European Beaux Arts . The buildings, built in the neo-Gothic collegiate style , include the school chapel (1925), a war memorial, the library and the assembly hall (1954).

In 1927 his partner Arnold withdrew from the business. Abbott initially worked under his own name, later he took on GI Hole as a partner and operated under Abbott and Hole , later Abbott, Hole and Annabelle .

He designed the obelisk on One Tree Hill in 1941 . For more than 25 years, his customers included the Bank of New Zealand , for which he set up many branches in what was then the province of Auckland . He built structures for the Cornwall Park Trust , Kempthorne, Prosser and Company and the Dilworth Trust . For the church of St. Aidan he visited in Remuera, he built a lychgate , a traditional gate building in English churches.

During World War II he was a Second Lieutenant in the 34th Army Troops Company of the New Zealand Engineers .

His buildings helped shape the cityscape of Auckland in the first half of the 20th century.

Works

(all in Auckland)

• House, 9 Wharua Road (1913, listed building)
• Caretaker's residence at Auckland Grammar School (1915, listed building)
• Main building of the Auckland Grammar School (1916, monument)
• Main building of King's College (1922, monument)
• King's College school chapel (1925, monument)
• Bank of New Zealand, several branches (e.g. Upper Symonds Street Branch (1937))
• Obelisk on One Tree Hill (1941, architectural monument)
• Kings College, Library (1954)
• Kings College, Assembly Hall (1954)

Memberships

As a graduate of King's College, he was a member of its "Old Boys' Association". Abbott was one of the founding members of the New Zealand Institute of Architects and headed its Auckland branch from 1927 to 1928, sat on the Institute Council from 1926 to 1928 and on its training committee from 1926 to 1936. He was also a member of the town planning Institute of New Zealand, and was a member of the Auckland Club and the Officers' Club .

Private life

On May 9, 1911, he married Adah Kathleen Hume, who died in 1941. Abbott died on May 20, 1954 in Auckland, leaving behind four sons and a daughter.

Atkinson was an active member of the Anglican Church . It is known from his private life that he liked to work on his car in a workshop in his house. Every year the family took a six-week vacation to a country house in Henderson Valley , which was reached by train with children and a family cow.

He lived in a house he designed at 11 Upland Road.

literature

• Obit. Home and Building 17, No. 2 (July 1954): pp. 34–35, 55.
• Obit. Journal of the New Zealand Institute of Architects 21, No. 10 (Nov. 1954): pp. 170-171.
• J. Stacpoole, P. Beaven: New Zealand art: architecture 1820-1970. Wellington, 1972.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Abbott, Richard Atkinson - Architect . Heritage New Zealand , archived from the original on May 2, 2013 ; accessed on May 10, 2019 (English, original website no longer available).  
2. ↑ His father's listing on Ancestry.com, accessed March 31, 2013
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Jeremy Salmond : Abbot, Richard Atkinson . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Volume IV . Bridget Williams Books , Wellington 1998 (English, online [accessed May 10, 2019]).
4. ^ Entry on the monument "House, 9 Wharua Road" on the website of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 606
5. ^ Entry on the monument "Auckland Grammar School Janitor's House (Former)" on the website of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 4532
6. ^ Entry on the monument "Auckland Grammar School (Main Block)" on the website of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 4471
7. ↑ Entry on the “King's College Chapel” monument on the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 90 website
8. ↑ Entry on the “King's College Main Block” monument on the New Zealand Historic Places Trust website 529
9. ^ Entry on the monument "Obelisk on One Tree Hill" on the website of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 4601