Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
I'm all for increasing building intensity in Auckland to stop urban sprawl. Good idea. Except when it involves what's left of our built heritage that is.
This villa has sat proudly (well, not so proudly these days obviously - the owner doesn't seem to believe in a fresh coat of paint from one decade to the next) on Ponsonby Road for over 100 years. It was built by craftsmen without the assistance of power tools from 1000 year old Kauri. The iconic Kauri tree that is dying out due to kauri die-back disease and may well be lost for ever.
Yet council zoning says this place can be demolished. I just don't get it.
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