North Otago Constructivism

Although we can’t say for sure that farmers in North Otago were thinking of Rodchenko or Kandinsky when they cast these concrete culverts, we’d like to think that’s the case. Regardless of intent, this side road in North Otago has been the anonymous backdrop for some extraordinary examples of abstract geometry for decades – floating amidst the mantle of the surrounding landscape.

When David Straight and I worked on Vernacular (more than a decade ago), we were consistently surprised by landscape interventions such as this – in which logic has generated structures whose form is not strictly prosaic.

Following Vernacular’s publication, over-excited digital despatches are a regular occurrence, whenever one of us discovers a hitherto unknown wonder of New Zealand’s built environment. As we work on our next book (regarding landscape processes and biodiversity), it is inevitable that this parallel conspectus of NZ’s everyday built environments will continue.

We may even consider Vernacular 2.0 at some stage, but for now it’s enough to rejoice in the accidental discovery of examples of authorless genius that we would have liked to have seen the first time round. Furthermore, it’s always valuable to record objects and places such as these, lest they be tidied away in the name of progress.