Ivan Mercep

In the interior of his creation, architect Ivan Mercep stands like a giant over his contemporaries. The building is the University of Auckland's new home of Pacific Studies, Fale Pasifika. The occasion is to celebrate Mercep's Fiftieth year as a practicing architect, and the venue is fitting. It is a monument to the man whose buildings are scattered around the University campus, greater Auckland, and on Wellington's waterfront in the form of Te Papa.

Hidden by a stand of tall trees above the remodeled Grafton Gully the dark 12 metre high oval form of the Fale creates the visage of a contemporary meeting house. Capable of accommodating 300 people, the interior is a cathedral like space with high arches wrought of raw timber and decorative binding.

The well maintained Mercep strides into the reception area of JASMAX, the practice he co-founded as JASMaD in 1963. An imposing presence, the septuagenarian is well over six foot tall, equipped with piercing pale eyes set, and a mind as sharp as a new razor.

Away from the office throng, Mercep relates how his enthusiasm was stimulated as a 12 year old pouring over the architecture sections of his father's encyclopedias. Guarded yet friendly, he reflects on the career since, dispelling any suggestion that it's high time he emptied his desk.

"It's not a job, it's a hobby for me now that I've theoretically retired as a fulltime employee. I guess as long as those projects keep coming up I'll have an interest. While my mind is active enough, and I’m well enough to do them."

The projects that Mercep refers to are public buildings, spaces created for the Auckland community that he has long been immersed in. Projects like the Waikato Museum of Art and History, and currently the Aquatic Centre for Tauranga, and Te Pa, a Maori cultural centre to be built on the lower reaches of the Bastion Point reserve

This interest in the public affairs of Auckland began in the 1960s, when Mercep first worked on large buildings for the University. His critical mind has since been applied to the community based Ponsonby Urban Design plan of the 1980s, and the current Auckland Urban Design panel.

These interests and Mercep’s architectural knowledge put him in a unique position to comment on how things have changed since he graduated.

"A lot of younger architects don't serve an apprenticeship in a sense, they start getting the opportunities to put up large buildings before they've served a proper apprenticeship. There's some very poor quality work being done, and being allowed to be done, because of the current code that permits certain types of buildings to be built in a particular way."

To Mercep's relief, that code is likely to be changed soon. As someone who strives to create buildings that comfortably accommodate people, he is fundamentally opposed to bad architecture. Due to this, the 1980s were not an auspicious time.
"It was a challenge, designing buildings for a very tight market, where the user's requirements weren't paramount, and the result is that a lot of those buildings are vacated, they're being used for other uses. I've never been one that believes that the market will produce good quality architecture. In the end it might, but in the interim there's a lot of very bad work."

Mercep co-founded JASMaD upon his return from working in Canada and England in the early 1960s. The practice’s first project was the University of Auckland accommodation building International House, completed in 1970. Both this and 1977's University Recreation Centre have won Enduring Architecture awards, testament to their designer's long term view.
"Those buildings are quite unique buildings, they're not just a square block," emphasizes retired University Registrar Warwick Nicol. "It's about space, it's about what the purpose of the building is. It's understanding the culture, it's understanding how buildings work, that's really where he's quite unique."

However, Recreation Centre manager Greg Tollan has mixed feelings about the building. “A lot of people refer to it as the Grand Old Lady of sports and recreation. I’d like it to be the leading lady.” While he still finds the exterior attractive, Tollan says inside the building’s age is showing. “It reflects what the demands of the day were. The Centre is not big enough for the high volume, and with changing functionality it gets difficult. It can be a bit of a rabbit warren.”

Designing a building that was highly adaptable was of paramount concern over the eight years Mercep spent on Te Papa Tongarawa The Museum of New Zealand. With Auckland architect Pete Bossley, Mercep was responsible for overseeing the project from concept to completion.

"He was the inspiration," says fellow JASMaD founder John Austin. "His leadership in architectural terms, that huge ability to understand all of the issues of technology, humanity, culture, politics, finance, was needed to build what was at that stage the biggest building in New Zealand."

Mercep's uncompromising perfectionism made him notorious amongst his colleagues on the Te Papa project. In fact, he was viewed as a primary risk for the museum not being completed on time. He laughs at this, saying "If I think something is wrong I want to change it and make it right. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to detail, and on that job it was particularly good in that everybody had bought into the project, which is what you try to do."

On occasions when this was not the case, Mercep was not afraid to fight for his ideals. Remembers Austin, “It got difficult if the standards of those around him didn't measure up to his own.”

Te Papa counts amongst the projects Mercep has most enjoyed, mainly because he likes working as part of a large team. But one of his primary disappointments was a design for the visitors centre at Cape Reinga that was ultimately rejected.

"That was a very exciting prospect, something I really enjoyed. We developed a design that penetrated the hill and you came out onto this structure that was like a bird about to take off, which symbolised for me the departure of the spirits for Hawaiki. It was reasonably well received, so we were very disappointed that it didn't proceed. But at the moment nothing's proceeding so there's always a chance!"

This characteristic optimism sees Mercep looking forward with excitement to his next big project, the Te Pa cultural centre. Although many of his colleagues have retired, for this architect the rewards are still multiple.

“It's the joy of working with the group that I work with, creating something, the whole process of designing, getting it built, handing it over, seeing the eventual user enjoy using the building, those sort of things are pretty attractive.”


Gavin Bertram.