Why Are New Buildings Made to Look Historical?

An Exploration of Traditional Architecture in Modern Times

[Editor’s note: In August local architect Phil Green put forward to members of Tauranga Historical an illustrated talk on the above topic.  It was not a discussion of old buildings: it explored reasons why, despite having unlimited technological freedom, modern architects so often create new buildings intentionally designed to resemble historical architecture. Because of its relevance to heritage conservation debate generally, we offer a lightly edited version of it here.]

Two city-state skylines: Athens, above, and Singapore, below

As one of humanity's oldest forms of cultural expression, buildings tell stories about the societies that created them.  Even though computer modelling now allows architects to design forms that would have been impossible only decades ago, they still make use of historical references.

Reasons for this tradition can be found by examining its historical origins, the social influences and economic motivations that drive it, and developments in construction techniques.  The tradition also has its critics; its continued use carries some implications for the future.

Creating buildings that imitate earlier styles is not a modern phenomenon. Throughout history, architects have repeatedly looked backwards for inspiration. The Renaissance revived the architecture of Ancient Rome. The Gothic Revival movement of the nineteenth century brought medieval design back into fashion. The Greek Revival movement spread across Europe, New Zealand, Australia and North America, where government buildings were deliberately designed to resemble ancient Greek temples. These styles were not considered copies. Instead, they represented admiration for earlier civilisations while adapting them for contemporary society.

Today's historical-style developments continue this tradition. Architects have a wide repertoire of historical elements they can use:

• Stone or brick façades
• Symmetrical layouts and classical proportions
•  Columns, porticos, decorative cornices and arches
• Timber detailing and decorative ironwork
• Structural features like pitched roofs and traditional window arrangements.

Auckland Municipal Destructor and Depot (Former), Auckland. CC BY-SA 2.0
Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org | Joe Ross

https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/7664/Auckland-Municipal-Destructor-and-Depot-Former

Although these features can appear to be centuries old, most are manufactured using modern construction techniques. Behind the façade is usually reinforced concrete, structural steel, modern plumbing, elevators, air conditioning and sophisticated earthquake engineering. Therefore, these buildings are historically inspired rather than historically constructed.

One of the strongest arguments for historical architecture is its ability to preserve cultural identity. European cities attract millions of tourists because their streets possess architectural consistency developed over centuries. Many newer developments - including in colonised countries - imitate these environments because visitors associate traditional architecture with authenticity and culture. Some entire towns have been designed using historical styles specifically to attract tourism. Although these places may be relatively modern, visitors enjoy the atmosphere they create

Cuidad Cayala, Guatemala City [1]

When entirely modern buildings are inserted into historic districts, many people believe they interrupt this visual harmony. Architects are therefore asked to design sympathetic buildings that blend with their surroundings. This approach is especially common in heritage precincts where planning regulations require new developments to complement existing streetscapes. Rather than competing with historic landmarks, new buildings become part of a continuous architectural story.

British urban street: eighteenth, nineteenth and late twentieth-century styling

Numerous surveys have shown that the public often prefer traditional architecture to highly modern designs. Psychologists suggest that humans naturally appreciate buildings containing patterns, symmetry and ornament. Traditional buildings also tend to include features at human scale: visible windows, decorative entrances, textured materials, clearly defined roofs.

Glass towers, while impressive, can sometimes feel anonymous or intimidating. Traditional architecture often creates a greater sense of comfort and belonging. Supporters of today's revival architecture see it as continuing a tradition that has existed for thousands of years, and  argue that cities should prioritise beauty over novelty. If people enjoy traditional buildings more, architects should design environments people actually want to live in.

Suburban residential street in Poundbury, Dorset [2]

Financial considerations can play a major role. Historic-looking buildings often command higher property values. Luxury developments frequently incorporate classical architectural elements because they communicate permanence, stability and prestige. Hotels designed to resemble historic mansions often attract visitors seeking a distinctive experience. Retail developments may re-create historic streets because customers generally spend more time in visually attractive environments. Developers understand these preferences. If buyers prefer traditional homes, developers build traditional homes. Architecture therefore reflects market demand as much as artistic vision. For developers, architecture is therefore not only an aesthetic but also a commercial strategy.

Regent Street, Christchurch New Zealand.
Left to right: before the 2011 earthquakes; rebuilding; and re-completed.

Not everyone supports historical revival architecture. Critics argue that it imitates rather than innovates; that architecture should represent its own era, and that false historical appearance may confuse future generations.  Certainly, decorative features can increase construction costs. Many modernist architects believe “honesty in architecture” means expressing modern materials rather than disguising them. They argue steel should look like steel—not stone.

Another criticism of older architecture is that historic buildings are often inefficient. However, modern historical buildings usually combine traditional appearance with sustainable technology. Thermal, energy and water conservation measures mean architects no longer need to choose between beauty and sustainability. Modern engineering allows both.

Although historical buildings may appear handcrafted, today's construction methods are highly advanced. Technologies such as computer-aided design (CAD,) Building Information Modelling (BIM), laser-cut stone, 3D-printed mouldings, prefabricated wall systems, earthquake-resistant steel frames and fire-resistant materials dramatically reduce construction costs while maintaining historical appearance. A building that once required decades to complete can now be finished within a few years.

Artificial intelligence, robotics and digital fabrication are changing architecture rapidly. Future historical buildings that appear to be almost identical to buildings constructed centuries ago may be constructed using autonomous robots and 3D-printed stone. At the same time, architects continue searching for ways to balance innovation with cultural heritage. Rather than replacing history, modern architecture increasingly seeks to build upon it.

Centre for Performing Arts, downtown Vancouver, Canada

The growing popularity of new buildings designed to look historical reflects a desire to connect the past with the present. These buildings preserve cultural identity, satisfy public preferences, enhance tourism, and often provide economic benefits, while incorporating modern technologies that improve safety, comfort and sustainability. Although debate continues between supporters of modernism and advocates of traditional design, historical-inspired architecture demonstrates that progress does not necessarily require abandoning the past.

Instead, architects are finding ways to combine centuries of architectural knowledge with contemporary engineering, creating buildings that honour history while serving the needs of modern society. However, historical significance is not always determined by architectural excellence alone. Sometimes ordinary buildings become treasured because of the stories they hold. Schools, community centres, workplaces, and homes can all gain historical value when they become connected to important evens, cultural movements, or shared memories. Heritage is a much about people as it is buildings.

Looking further ahead, future generations may even preserve examples of modular housing, adaptive reuse projects, and resilient structures designed to cope with rising sea levels and changing climates. These buildings may tell the story of how communities responded to some of the greatest challenges of our era. 

Left: Neoclassical futurism, designed by Tim Fu [3]. Right: A biophilic city, designed for construction by 3D robots [4]

Ultimately, the architecture that becomes historic will be the architecture that best represents who we were. It will reflect our innovations, our struggles, our successes, and our vision for the future. As architects, planners, builders, and citizens, we have a responsibility to consider not only what we build today, but what legacy we leave for tomorrow. The historical architecture of the future is already being designed, constructed, and lived in around us. The buildings we create today are not merely structures of the present – they are the heritage of future generations.

Image credits

All images except the photo of the Auckland Municipal Destructor and Depot were sourced by Phil Green.

References and captions

These were contributed by the editor.

 [1] For further discussion, see https://www.archdaily.com/1034953/the-cayala-paradox-how-are-private-districts-shaping-public-space-design-in-guatemala

[2] For further information, see https://poundbury.co.uk/

[3] An exponent of architectural practice using artificial intelligence: see https://www.timfu.com/tim

[4] for a practical example of a biophilic structure within an existing city, see https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/journal-of-biophilic-design/rotterdam-rocks-a-new-biophilic-landmark-for-rotterdam

Correcting the links: Harold John Jenks

Harold Jenks, Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, was a member of the Tauranga Historical Society.

Harold Jenks’ drawing of the Waikato River Hydro-electric Scheme, taken from p. 167 of his memoir, The Wind in the Tussocks.  Image: Beth Bowden

A lot of effort went into the mapping and measurement of this country.  A lot of it still goes unnoticed or ignored, although among the processes of colonisation the work of nineteenth-century surveyors was both intrusive and consequential[1]; they knew their work would have practical, permanent effect.  They were also, perhaps, of all colonisers the most aware of their own shortcomings.  Surveyors like Harold Jenks were modest characters.

By the twentieth century, when Harold arrived in New Zealand, a seventeen year old youth, occupation “fitter”, who had embarked at Southampton in 1924, he still found a quite astonishing scope and scale for physical challenge, intellectual adventure, and – it has to be said - error correction.  Even after twenty years of painstaking study and challenging fieldwork, he had to adapt his project, the Waikato Hydro-Electric Scheme, to the fact that a 7.65 foot discrepancy in the assessed level of Lake Taupo had been established[2].

The seven North Island networks of local mean sea level datums (LVDs) relied on by surveyors from approximately 1950 until 2016.  Lake Taupo can be seen near-centre of the Moturiki network.  Image: Toitū Te Whenua | Land Information New Zealand

Harold was equal to this.  In his memoir he says he “has forgotten now” how the construction plans for the “hydraulic structures” were adapted to the new, “identifiable and acceptable” [3] datum.  For him the great thing was confidence.  Plans could be made; great works could be engineered.  Fundamental to these plans and works was an accurate survey.

Survey party, 1927.  Harold in the centre with two chainmen.  Image: Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, May 1986

As a very young man, with few-to-no formal qualifications, on his own in a new country, Harold showed considerable confidence.  His long life (he was 101 when he died) saw his chosen profession change from one where a would-be surveyor took a cadetship, “serv[ing] under articles to a qualified surveyor”[4] to a time when only a university qualification would do.  But his experience as an articled cadet, “a rather rough school”[5], linked him more closely to the nineteenth-century surveyors.  They became the subject of his first book, Forgotten Men: The Survey of Tauranga and District 1864 – 1869[6], published by the Tauranga Historical Society in 1991.

Harold had joined the Society shortly after his retirement, when he and his wife Gwen left Wellington to re-settle in Mount Maunganui.  He was an active member: on the debating team that went to Rotorua to argue “That photographs are the best means of recording history”; leading a Society members' outing to see the Waikato power sites; distributing the Historical Review in Mount Maunganui; and eventually becoming one of three Vice-Presidents in 1990.  He thus came into contact with Alan Bellamy, who, like Harold, had made his way up the ranks of his chosen profession (rail transportation) and, on his retirement, joined the THS.  Alan had developed an interest in old photographs and printing work; his Society task at the time was to collate articles from Tauranga for eventual publication in the Review. The two men had a lot in common.istorical Society to publish the

 

 

 

 

Harold had already contributed a couple of well-crafted articles for the Review[7].  His next effort, a comprehensive account of the men who undertook the first surveys of Tauranga, had however grown well beyond the limits of a magazine story.  In 1988 Alan Bellamy got the Society’s approval to publish the manuscript, carefully illustrated with photographs and fold-out maps and documents, as a monograph costing $12 a copy: “pre-publication orders would be sought”[8]. 

Thus encouraged by Alan, Harold’s pride in his chosen calling found a means of impersonal expression:

But who were these men, the Kai-ruuri Whenua who first measured this land, appraised it, considered its access and ran the road lines; who planned and marked out the boundaries of the town lots and the farm areas; who laid down a pattern of development which still shows through clearly after the passage of 130 years?

What brought them to Tauranga, what experiences befell them while here and what became of them when their work was finished?

Very little has been written about them and only a few are known by name.

Surveyor’s chain, 66 links, each link measuring one foot.  The 22 yard-length (“one chain”) was used not only for boundary measurements, expressed as “x chains and y links” but also for the length of a cricket pitch.  Image: Rob Morgenstern

Local historical scholarship owes much to inquiries of this kind.  Writing from his perspective as an English-born, New Zealand-trained professional, the links Harold provides to the past evoke a sense of landscape that, as it was measured, confined by a history of chains and links, so became man-made, and subject to human error.  He also offers some account of older, equally human, understandings of topography, distance and land use[9]. 

Local historical researchers often find that these overlap each other.  They are not only linked; they invite us to consider the need for correction and a more reliable datum.  Harold would, I think, approve.

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[1]  See, for instance, https://maorigis.nz/ for a website intended to assist contemporary Māori researchers working with both historical and current land surveys.

[2] Jenks, H. J., The Wind in the Tussocks, New Zealand Institute of Surveyors Inc, 2002, p. 45

[3]  ibid

[4]  Jenks, H. J. Recollections of a Surveyor, Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, May 1986, p. 1

[5] ibid

[6] I am indebted to John Coster for the gift of a copy of this book

[7] Recollections of a Surveyor, Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 1, May 1986, and The Maraetai Ferry, The Story of Waka Mahi – A Versatile Craft, Historical Review, Vol. 46, No. 1, May 1998

[8] Minutes of the Tauranga Historical Society, 8 September 1988

[9] See, for example, Chapter 2.16, Maori anitquities, at pp. 156-164 of The Wind in the Tussocks

Hunt’s Halfway House, Upper Kaimai, 1911-1937

 

Harry and Emma Hunt with daughter Maude

Joseph Henry (aka Harry or “Puki”) and Emma Hunt and their only daughter Maude came to farm in the district in 1911. As time went by, their home, of modest proportions, became known as Hunt’s Halfway House.  Tea and hot meals could be obtained and overnight accommodation was provided for stranded motorists on many an occasion. The service car drivers made good use of the refreshments provided by Emma and Maude.

Hunt’s Halfway House

In the early 1920s the Hunts, together with their neighbours the Scotts and Stephens, provided metal from their own local rhyolite quarry and fixed the roads in the area, including seven miles up Omanawa, at a rate of one mile a day. They also held Farmers’ Union meetings at their home. 

Another service provided was rescuing stranded vehicles from the mud, often at the expense of time used to run the farms. Motorists, if they were well prepared, carried a variety of tools in addition to tyre chains, including spades, axes, slashers, wire strainers, timber blocks and timber jacks.

Maude Hunt in front of the halfway house

Maude married James Scott who purchased land from his father-in-law in 1928 and in 1938 the Ministry of Works purchased, for 50 pounds, two of those acres for a quarry. The tramline into the bush for the nearby Henderson’s Sawmill was built across James and Maude’s land.

“Puki” helping children with the pony

In May 1937 the Hunts retired to Gate Pa in the Borough of Tauranga and were given a farewell by people of the Kaimai district. Much appreciation was expressed for 25 years of serving their community in so many ways, including their wonderful hospitality to all and sundry.

Sources

Kaimai Revisited — 75th Jubilee of Kaimai School, edited by Betty Coubrough
Papers Past, BOP Times, 1920- 1940
Linda Fairgray (one of the grandchildren of James and Maude Scott)

All images are courtesy of Linda Fairgray