Fiona Christeller
{{Short description|New Zealand architect and jeweller}}
{{Use New Zealand English|date=April 2025}}
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Fiona Christeller is a New Zealand architect and jeweller who was a founding member of the Women's Institute of Architecture (WIA) group when it formed in May 1979. She is based in Wellington.{{Cite book |title=Making space: a history of New Zealand women in architecture |date=2022 |publisher=Massey University Press |isbn=978-1-991016-34-8 |editor-last=Cox |editor-first=Elizabeth |location=Auckland}} She was also the recipient of the Fletcher Scholarship in 1977, during her final year in architecture school.
Biography
While at architecture school in her final year in 1977 Christeller got a Fletcher Scholarship in 1977. In 1979, she was a founding member of the Women's Institute of Architecture.
Christeller first practiced architecture in Auckland, before moving to Wellington in the mid-1980s. Notably, she chose to establish her practice in an office in the city instead of working from home to assert that women, like men, were legitimate architects and should not be expected to work from home. Her Wellington-based practice FCA (formerly Fiona Christeller Architects) closed at the beginning of 2014.{{Cite web |title=Fiona Christeller architects |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/21434808?search%5Bi%5D%5Bcreator%5D=Honey,+Tommy,+INNZNA&search%5Bi%5D%5Bsubject%5D=Architecture&search%5Bpath%5D=items |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=National Library of New Zealand}}{{Cite web |title=architecture FCA |url=https://fca.co.nz/ |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=architecture FCA |language=en-US}} About half of her projects focused on domestic buildings, and the other half commercial and school buildings.
Christeller designed a co-sustainable house called 'Rangimarie' on an infill site in Wellington completed in 2012.{{Cite web |title=Fiona Christeller |url=https://architecturewomen.org.nz/network/member/19582 |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=AWNZ |language=en-NZ}}{{Cite web |title=Local Award Winners |url=https://architecturewomen.org.nz/research/articles/local-award-winners |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=AWNZ |language=en-NZ}} The house won a Wellington Award at the NZIA Local Awards. The judges said: "The building is carefully composed in a way that appears effortless...".
Chrietller is a jeweller{{Cite web |title=architecture FCA |url=https://fca.co.nz/ |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=architecture FCA |language=en-US}} and had an exhibition with Birgit Moffatt at Pataka Art + Museum in Porirua in 2018 and a group exhibition at Studio Toru in Wellington in 2023.{{Cite web |title=Birgit Moffatt and Fiona Christeller |url=https://pataka.org.nz/whats-on/exhibitions/birgit-moffatt-and-fiona-christeller/ |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=Pataka Art + Museum |language=en-nz}}
Awards
- 2012, Wellington Award, NZIA Local Awards - Rangimarie
- 2020, Presidents Award, NZIA{{Cite web |last=Architects (www.nzia.co.nz) |first=NZ Institute of |title=NZIA President's Awards 2020 |url=https://nzia.co.nz/awards/president-s-awards/2020/ |access-date=2025-04-06 |website=NZ Institute of Architects (www.nzia.co.nz)}}
References
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Category:New Zealand women architects