52
LANDSCAPE ARCGITECTURE AOTEAROA
Waitangi Hotel, Northland, 1970.
G. Reithmaier photographer.
R24803608 ANZ,W.sam
A welcome guest
This British-born planner was quick to recognise and influence
New Zealand’s potential as a tourist destination.
Text by John Adam
HISTORIANS OF URBAN DESIGN, CONSERVATION AND
tourism have overlooked one of the more influential
and regular visitors to New Zealand, Professor Arthur
G. Ling (1913-1996).
Ling made several visits over the period of 1964 to
1976. During each visit he presented keynote papers to
the Urban Development Association of NZ , a Wellington-based pressure group that functioned from 1963
to 1976. Ling had a major part in the foundation of
this public forum, which published a quarterly glossy
magazine called ‘Town & Country’ and was chaired by
architect Frank W. Ponder (1916-2015).
More significantly, Ling undertook reports for three
New Zealand government Cabinet Ministers of Tourism, the Rt. Hons. Dean Eyre, David Spence Thomson
and Harry Lapwood. The three NZ government reports were titled Planning and Development of Tourist
Areas (1964); Planning and Administrative Problems of
Tourist Parks and Regions in New Zealand (1969) and
Tourist Development Report (February, 1976).
Keynote papers from Ling’s 1964 and 1976 visits
were titled, respectively: What can be achieved in
confined urban development; and Planning: city centres, regions, and public participation.
Who was Arthur G. Ling?
He was British-born Communist planner who studied under Sir Patrick Abercrombie in London, and was
influenced by the Russian urban planner Nicolay A.
Milyutin, who is best-known for the linear city. Ling
visited Russia in 1939 and wrote reports on Warsaw
and Moscow in the 1950s. As a founding member of
the Modern Architectural Research (MARS) Group he
jointly published a paper ‘A Master Plan for London’
(with Canadian born landscape architect, Christopher
Tunnard (1910-1979) etal) in the Architectural Review
in 1942.
By 1945 Ling was the head of the town planning
section of Architects Dept. for London County Council
and he features in the notable film ‘Proud City, 1946’.
Ling designed Runcorn New Town in England in 1964