Indigenous ornament: Roy Alston (sic) Lippincott at Massey University

Abstract

This report analyses three buildings constructed at Massey University between 1927 and 1931, and specifically questions the role of the ornament in these works. It finds that the American architect, Roy Alston Lippincott, has responded to both the contemporary New Zealand Architectural establishment, and to the work of Louis Sullivan in Midwestern America. The former proves to be anathema to the Massey buildings; the latter became a stimulus of structure and ornamental regime. The investigation finds indigenous forms influenced the ornament more than in other local work, or in that of Sullivan. In this, Lippincott is seen in connection with the Romantic movement of the arts, but he is found to be an architectural maverick: he disrupts convention, while avoiding direct classification as an adherent to style or ideology.