Catherine Mosbach on Hamilton's CBD

French landscape architect Catherine Mosbach has completed her whirlwind New Zealand Streetscape sponsored speaking tour exhausted, but with a new appreciation for our food and natural landscape. All up just under 500 people attended her lectures in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

Outside of her formal engagements she was able to take in the sights of Auckland’s Viaduct and Wynyard quarter, courtesy of Henry Crothers. NZILA president Brad Coombs drove her to the Waikato where she spent time with local media.

The Waikato Times asked Mosbach to go through the Hamilton CBD with them for her take on the long running debate on how to treat Garden Place and opening up the city to the river. You can see the resulting story here.

Hamilton City. Image courtesy of www.waikatonz.com/about-us/image-video-library/

Then it was on to a stormy Wellington - sightseeing by car - with Peter Connolly.

A country girl at heart, NZILA Canterbury/Westland chair, Louise Bailey, says Mosbach was pretty keen to get to the coast on her free day down south. She needed that rejuvenation, and just wanted to get out to nature, Bailey told LAA.

“She described Birdlings Flat as 'the end of the earth' and breathed the sea air that she was hankering after. 

“She said she needed 'iode' a French word which I translated to iodine but that is not the contextual meaning. Basically sea air. It was a stunning day with no wind, sunny and warm and she was overawed by the lack of people and vastness of the uninhabited coastline and wild ocean. 

Catherine Mosbach at her Christchurch lecture.

“We lunched in Akaroa on the waterfront, drank champagne and strolled along the foreshore. On the return journey we stopped for coffee at Little River then traversed the hill and circled back via Governor's Bay and Lyttelton. 

“She felt re-invigorated before the long trip back to Paris.” 

And her schedule isn’t slowing down. She’s now due in Oslo to meet up with a team for another competition project.

The Christchurch lecture was filmed and the video will be available for viewing by the end of August.