About Claude
Claude Megson (1936-1994) was a pioneering New Zealand architect who emerged as one of the most experimental and radical figures in domestic architecture during the 1970s.
Born in Whangarei and educated at the University of Auckland, Megson established his own practice in 1962 and taught at the School of Architecture until his death in 1994 Collection: Claude Megson architectural drawings and papers | Manuscripts and Archives.
He represented the avant-garde modernist movement in New Zealand architecture, working alongside contemporaries like Ian Athfield and Roger Walker as "an idiosyncratic architectural iconoclast utterly committed to the New Zealand house". His most significant work came in the 1970s when his architecture was at its most daring and experimental. (Counterconstructions Victoria), creating distinctive family houses that challenged conventional domestic design through complex spatial arrangements, diagonal views, and "a more radical position like no other architect in New Zealand" How the brilliant architecture of Claude Megson disappeared from view. Despite winning numerous design awards and being widely published during his career, Megson died of cancer in 1994 at just 57 years old, having designed only 40 projects, and has been largely omitted from New Zealand's architectural history books (Book review: Claude Megson: Counter Constructions | Architecture Now), making him a somewhat overlooked figure in the country's modernist architectural heritage.
The Wilson House (Taupo) 1976 was designed for local teachers Michael & Marion Wilson (Michael having been a school friend of Megson). The home was held in their ownership until 2024. Client correspondence and design brief together with hand-drawn sketches and architectural plans & construction papers survive depicting the history of design and build processes of the home.
The Wilson House reflects Megson's challenges to the family home norms of the period, with the spaces, roofs and building forms being an example of his study of diagonal spaces. As a result of the extended ownership by the Wilson family the home has maintained a lower profile than other Megson designs