Utopian Housing: Cooperative Housing in Naenae, Lower Hutt

Today it exemplifies the remnants of a Utopian Cooperative vision which came to close fruition within New Zealand. Due to a number of factors such as the lack of resources, as well as the shift in the socio political climate post World War Two, a compromised version of the initial plan was built, and the cooperative component of the plan was largely forgotten.</p><p>The post-war state housing crisis of the 1940s presented Robertson with an opportunity to realize his social ambitions (Schrader 89).

This settlement came to fruition with the political will of the Labour Government, and the popular support of the new residents of Naenae. However for Robertson, Naenae represented a highly compromised version of his vision, with his vision for complete cooperative independence (including schools, shops, recreation facilities and other social infrastructure) being abandoned or acted on only partially. Although Robertson viewed this as a grand failure, Naenae nonetheless holds the architectural imprint of it utopian ambitions, in the Garden City and Radburn planning, and Emigre influenced modernism.</p><p>In the mid-1950s Naenae experienced a shift as its generally positive public image began to change (Schrader 11).

Reports of juvenile delinquency and promiscuity in the suburb tainted the reputation of Naenae, leading critics to point to the ‘monotonous housing, curvilinear streets and uniform population, as factors contributing to the incipient communities issues (Schrader 11). Critics ridiculed the notion of Naenae as an ideal society and blamed the Labour government for creating its near antithesis a state housing ghetto (Schrader 10).</p>