Monday, September 15, 2008

Book slams city's Scenes of obscenity
Anne Gibson writing in the New Zealand Herald, Saturday Sep 13, 2008

The Scene One, Two and Three apartment blocks are known locally as Obscene One, Two and Three.
So says Gordon McLauchlan in his book The Life and Times of Auckland (Penguin $40), on sale from September 29.
The Auckland waterfront apartment blocks between Quay St and Beach Rd are so horrid that Aucklanders have given them a new name to mark their offensiveness, McLauchlan says.
"Low-class buildings of various heights have been crammed on every square metre, with towering apartment buildings Scene One, Scene Two and Scene Three - tagged locally as Obscene One, Obscene Two and Obscene Three - dominating the skyline, redolent of early post-war state flats writ large," he writes in the last chapter on the city's history.
He calls the area "one of the most egregious, sustained acts of architectural vandalism in Auckland's history".

Read the rest of the story at the Herald online.

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