An organised anarchy or a community of diverse virtue ethics? The case of the Elam School of Fine Arts

There is a widely accepted myth in New Zealand that the Elam School of Fine Arts in the University of Auckland is an organised anarchy, internally divided and cantankerously unbiddable, and further, that this is largely inevitable given the nature of artists and designers. Its unique culture, however, is shown in this paper to have been generated and reinforced over decades by the exigencies of environment, partitioned and media-based curricular structures, intense and volatile relationships, and, occasionally, inappropriate leadership services. Despite this history, Elam has sustained a major role in shaping New Zealand's cultural identity, and continues to produce some of the country's most outstanding visual artists and designers. The paradox involved is partially explained by persistent evidence of self-managing teams, creative problem-solving, and independent excellence, that suggest deep and plural commitments to a virtue ethic. attended to with pachydermous pace, further reinforcing cantankerous factionalism. The Department of Railways vacated the old Mansion Hotel in Whitaker Place in 1967. It was eventually purchased by the university in the early 1970s and allocated to two departments. The Department of Architecture was given the `̀ brick mansion'', Fine Arts the `̀ wooden mansion''. The brick mansion too, came to Fine Arts in 1979, and, after a stout campaign, was refurbished in 1981. Like the steel frame building and other `̀ temporary'' accommodation, the mansions have since gradually acquired what might at best be described as an air of romantic dilapidation. When the numbers of students surged again in the early 1990s, due to a decision to double the intake, rented properties were acquired in haste by the University. Although approval had been given to demolish the steel frame building, this approval was withdrawn a fortnight before the bulldozers were to move in. The university's financial situation had worsened again. It was also decided to retain the wooden and brick mansions, although they soon proved inadequate given the growing numbers. The need for a new four-storey building was finally agreed in 1994, built in 1995 alongside the steel frame building, and occupied in 1996. It has, however, proved impossible to move out of the mansions. In 1991 Elam declined, and has resisted a number of times since, the offer of new facilities on the Tamaki Campus. The Hames Sharley International (1993) plan to replace the steel-frame building, with a multilayered and comprehensive set of facilities that would step up the hill to the Symonds Street frontage, was then, and still is, regarded to be beyond the reach of the university. While environment is not all, and many of Elam's facilities today are world class, this saga concerning buildings over many decades has been taken within the school to imply that the university has been unsure about investing in Elam. This embedded a collective sense of this institutional doubt in Elam's culture, with dual effects; it intensified resource and status politics, and it kindled an ethic of fractious excellence in adversity. Every achievement, and there have been many, has been so much the sweeter for the shared perception of externally contrived and sustained affliction. Similar patterns are evident in the changes to Elam's standing and curriculum provisions over the decades.