Editorial: Essence lost as older buildings go

This site and premises were, in function, as blue-collar as it gets.

New Zealand's the youngest country on the globe.

The length of human occupancy is less than 1500 years (possibly only 800) compared with at least 40,000 years in Australia.

We're an infant.

In Gordon McLauchlan's A Short History of New Zealand, he wrote: "New Zealand was the last large land mass in the world to be settled."

His is a "short" history, in one sense, because we have less history than others.

And at the close of day on Tuesday, we had even less of it.

Down on the corner, Tommo's Restaurant on Stortford Lodge is no more. At 35-odd- years young, the quirky piece of Hastings architecture was demolished via excavator.

Those of us with more than a passing interest in Hastings' built environment are getting tired of eulogising another notable fallen work.

This site and premises were, in function, as blue-collar as it gets. The garish decor was serious 80s kitsch - pleasingly distasteful. But in form it was cloaked in something special.

The geometric matrix was the brainchild of the late, former refugee of Romanian nationality and Greek descent, long-time Hawke's Bay resident and one of this country's most exuberant architects, Paris Magdalinos.

There's not enough space in this editorial to list the awards accumulated before New Zealand's "most colourful and flamboyant practitioner" died suddenly in 2008.

He's a provincial treasure.

With the Albert Hotel razed and its Opera House on shaky ground, Hastings needs to take a leaf from Napier and afford some sanctity to its built environment.

Change is inevitable; no one wants a museum for a city. But neither is this a protest sparked by nostalgia.

It's more to do with our obsession with newness and the commonly held assumption it's best-case.

While its propensity is to wield the wrecking ball, Hastings' ignorance of the great has made for neglect of the enduring. A recognisable city is fast becoming a stranger.