John Mair (architect)

After sitting the exam Mair returned via a building study tour of the United Kingdom, France and Italy to New Zealand.[7] He was home in Invercargill, New Zealand by October 1909.[5] While in Invercargill he obtained the commission to design one of his most notable early buildings, the Presbyterian First Church in Invercargill, with the plans approved in February 1910.[8] The church was of Romanesque character, whose design was influenced by the neo-Romanesque work of the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson.[7] The church was completed in 1915.

By April 1910 he had moved to Wellington where he established a private practice as both an architect and structural engineer[4] with an office at 16 Stock Exchange Building, Featherston Street.[9][10] He largely carried domestic commissions, but among his clients was the Upper Hutt Town Board. His father represented him in Invercargill.[11]

In 1918 he was appointed Inspector of Military Hospitals by the Defence Department.[10] He supervised the erection of King George Hospital and of the Waipukurau Sanatorium.[2] In 1920 he became architect to the Department of Education.[10]

Following the retirement of John Campbell in 1922, Mair was appointed Government Architect in April 1923, a position which he held until his own retirement.[2] The introduction of the Public Service Act 1912, had established a unified structure in place of the quasi-independent public sector fiefdoms under which Mair’s predecessor had operated. The Act codified public service career paths in a manner that tended to be more favourable for engineers than architects. As a result Mair’s office lacked autonomy as it reported to an Under-Secretary in a Public Works Department which was dominated by engineer.[12] In 1930 he was elected a member of the Town Planning Institute of New Zealand.[4] Mair’s strong leadership guided his office through the Depression, the sudden rebuilding demand of the Napier earthquake, and the beginning of World War II.[4]

Most of the government buildings designed during Mair’s tenure as Government Architect were significant departures from the buildings designed by his predecessor with the Public Works Department adopting modernist architectural precepts with an emphasis on function, structure and volume. His designs were typically restrained with In structural terms he was a leader by utilising concrete and structural steel which provided a superior seismic ability compared with the brick and timber which had been preferred to date in New Zealand.[10] As Government Architect Mair was responsible for a wide range variety of buildings, including courthouse, post offices and Government administration buildings. Notable among them were the Government Life Insurance Head Office in Wellington (1939), Chief Post Office in Dunedin (1937), Stout St Departmental Building in Wellington (1940) and the Jean Batten Building in Auckland (1941). During the difficult period of the depression Mair supported private architects in cities and towns outside Wellington by allocating government contracts to them.[10][7] For many years Mair’s staff were divided between offices in the Government Buildings and the old Museum Building. In 1939 he was able to bring them into a single office located in an upper storey of the Whitmore Street annexe to the Government Buildings.[13]

In 1941 Mair served together with the Acting Prime Minister Walter Nash, Horace Massey (president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects) and J. W. Mawson (Government Town Planner) on the jury to select a design for the clifftop mausoleum and memorial gardens for New Zealand Prime Minister, Michael Savage at Bastion Point, Auckland.[14]

Following his retirement in October 1941[2] he was succeeded as Government Architect by his assistant Robert Adams Patterson in February 1942.[15] He committed suicide on 26 November 1959 at his home in Khandallah, Wellington.[7]