Harry Turbott and the Auckland beginnings of landscape architecture

By Garth Falconer

This year is undoubtedly a great milestone for the NZILA celebrating its fifty years since inception. It's great to recognise the early pioneers too as have been noted in recent columns on the careers of George Malcolm and Charlie Challenger. Many of our younger members would not realise who these people were and the contribution they made so that we may now enjoy much greater scope and service to our society.

As a mature institution it is fundamentally important for NZILA to recognise that the beginnings of professional landscape architecture has wide foundations and other early pioneers.

In the 60s there was a clear divide between the origins of NZILA springing from Christchurch and Wellington out of horticultural departments at Lincoln Agricultural college and Government departments, and what was happening separately out of Auckland, our most dominant city and now home to most landscape architects.

This northern part of the family tree was a bit earlier than the southern branch and decidedly more urban in its focus and design orientated with close links to architecture and the design professions.

The central figure from the Auckland lineage was Harry Turbott who graduated out of Auckland’s School of Architecture in 1954 and won a scholarship to complete a masters in landscape architecture at Harvard University’s prestigious Graduate School of Design in 1958 under Hideo Sasaki.

Harry then worked for Dan Kiley for 18 months who was the most iconic landscape architect in that immediate post war design world. Harry returned to New Zealand in 1961 and set up a professional practice based on landscape architecture. He also taught landscape to architecture and planning students at Auckland University’s School of Architecture and Planning.

In 1967 he came close to getting approval to establish a two year course in landscape architecture though the university was embroiled in student unrest at the time and the initiative didn’t succeed. In the same year Harry was instrumental, along with Ted Smyth and Andrew Geddes, in setting up the New Zealand Association of Landscape Designers. Shortly afterwards, in 1969, Harry took on a partner, architect planner Brian Halstead and started what I believe was the first professional landscape architecture practice in Auckland.

Halstead Turbott and Associates worked around the country and also significantly in the Pacific Islands on a wide array of projects including parks, motorways, subdivisions and resorts. The partnership lasted until 1975 and Harry continued on teaching and practising.

His restoration of the Paro O Tane Palace in the Cook Islands and the Arataki Visitors Centre in the Waitakere Ranges, both completed in 1992, are key highlights to a long dedicated design and teaching career.

Harry also had a lot of input into the establishment of the landscape architecture course at Unitec. He passed away in 2016(for further information refer to the book “Harry Turbott; New Zealand's First Landscape Architect” 2020).

Brian Halstead’s practise worked mainly in the school design sector and he joined the NZILA in the early Eighties. Brian passed away in 2017.

These days we landscape architects are an established design profession with many practices and a large focus on concentrations of population. Together the early efforts of both southern and northern elements have produced a dynamic and a leading profession in a relatively short time. We certainly stand on these broad shoulders. The integrity and commitment that these early pioneers provided in our field we hope to live up to our time and this is part of our proud whakapapa.