Less than a week shy of her 96th birthday Lillian Jessie Chrystall died “peacefully and as she wanted to go,” on 24 February 2022.

“Lillian will be sadly missed,” Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects president Judi Keith-Brown says.

“She has had an extraordinary influence on the architectural community and been an inspiration to many. Her enduring legacy will forever be remembered and celebrated.”

Born Lillian Laidlaw in Auckland in 1926, Lillian began her architecture studies at the University of Auckland in 1944. During her student years, she gained experience at practices in both Auckland and Wellington, and also worked as a hospital cook and as a clothing factory hand. After graduating, she was appointed the School of Architecture's first woman instructor.

From 1950 to 1954, Lillian worked in England (for architect Erno Goldfinger) and France (for architect Andre Sive.) Upon returning to New Zealand she started her own practice, Lillian Laidlaw Architects. In the late 1950s her husband David Chrystall joined the practice and the business was re-named Chrystall Architects. Lillian worked there until her retirement in 2011, aged 85.

In 1967 Lillian won the New Zealand Institute of Architects Bronze Medal for the (Anthony) Yock House in Ngāpuhi Road, Remuera, (for which she also received an Enduring Award from the Auckland Branch in 2013.) In 1979 she received a design award for the (Philip) Yock house in Mission Bay. Lillian was an Institute Fellow, and Architecture + Women New Zealand named the Chrystall Excellence Award in her honour, with recipients including Institute Gold Medallist Julie Stout, academic Sarah Treadwell and Institute Past President Christina van Bohemen.

“She has had an extraordinary influence on the architectural community and been an inspiration to many. Her enduring legacy will forever be remembered and celebrated.”

As well as being a highly successful architect and mother to Paul, Ben and Madeleine, Lillian was a founding member of the Auckland Zonta Club. She was the first woman on the Auckland Savings Bank (ASB) Board of Trustees, and described her appointment as being “a bit of a jolt to that staid institution”. In 1983 she became its Chair, a position she held for two years. In the 1989 New Year Honours, Lillan was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for public services.

Judi Keith-Brown recalls first seeing Lillian's work as an architecture student in the 1980s.

“She had designed a lovely home for one of my Grandfather’s best friends, Peter Woodward. I was in my second year at architecture school, and I remember looking through her beautiful drawings of the very elegant house and thinking that one day I wanted to be able to try and do the same.

“I remember the careful arrangement of rooms and the elegant proportions of the elevations. Her work was refined and very different from the  experimental craziness of the 1980s.”

Photo: From left, Auckland University architecture students Leek, Tom, Dorothy Gawith (Dot Mahon), Sue Sharpe (Susanne Priest), Dave, Lillian Chrystall, Rex and John. Image supplied by Mahon family to Architecture + Women NZ.

2021 Gold Medal recipient and Distinguished Fellow Julie Stout describes Lillian as a gracious and cultivated woman.

“Lillian was quietly determined in the beginning to have her own dress shop business but eagerly switched to architectural studies after a few years travelling abroad with the family.

“In the then male-dominated world of architecture, she was a quiet but forceful presence, becoming the first female ‘instructress’ at the School of Architecture before setting off overseas again. She was a generous and supportive colleague to many aspiring young architects,” Stout said.

“Right into her late eighties, Lillian was still keeping interested in architecture and attending classical concerts in the Town Hall. I’d sometimes give her a lift home afterwards and enjoyed our conversations. She was always perceptive, with no fuss, no nonsense, just quietly enjoying her life.”

Lillian will be forever remembered by all three generations of her family and remaining friends. A memorial service will be notified and held at a later date.

More information about Lillian's life and work, including a 2019 interview with Julie Stout and Lynda Simmons, a profile written by Lindley Naismith, and a 1977 Herald article, can be found on the Architecture + Women New Zealand website.