The Fred Tschopp Collection

Fred Tschopp came to New Zealand at the start of the Depression and made plans for five parks in Auckland, such as Craigavon Park.  He also worked on many other major projects around the country.  

Unitec Library holds a special collection of materials related to his work in New Zealand.

Who was Fred Tschopp?

Fred Tschopp was born in 1901 and died in 1980. He was American and did a lot of work in and around Los Angeles. In the late 1920s, he and his wife decided to go on a big world exploration, which led him to arrive in New Zealand. He was provided with many letters of recommendation from people in the US who he had worked with/for, recommending him as a trustworthy gentleman and a fine landscape architect. We have many of these letters. During his time in New Zealand, he worked for the Borough of Mt Albert, worked on landscaping Parliament House and Premier House, and was heavily involved in what appears to be his biggest project of landscaping the city of Rotorua. This work was done in the early 1930s.

Location of the collection

The collection is in a cabinet in the quiet study area on Level 3 of Te Puna. It is in a half-height tambour. 

Access to the collection

The cabinet is currently locked.  Send an email to libinfo@unitec.ac.nz to arrange a time to access the cabinet.  These items cannot be removed from the library.  

What do we have in the collection?

• Diagrams and photos of his work in Los Angeles and California
• Letters of recommendation for Fred Tschopp from previous clients – primarily in the US
• A letter from the Minister of Lands from 1930 recommending Fred Tschopp for his work
• Loose pages from the Parliament House specification
• The Parliament House specification (apparently with all pages)
• Photo of proposed landscaping for Parliament House
• A significant number of newspaper articles, diagrams, plans, letters etc. for the work he did with the landscape of Rotorua
• Newspaper articles, letters etc. from Fred Tschopp’s time of employment as a landscape architect for the Borough of Mt Albert
• Some photos of his adventures around the world on his big world exploration
• Other communication between the USA and New Zealand to/from Fred Tschopp
• Communication between Fred Tschopp and Matthew Bradbury, Professor in Landscape Architecture, Unitec Institute of Technology (including his role in establishing the Masters in Landscape Architecture program)
• Photos, letters, research paper and ephemera of a research paper done later about Fred Tschopp
• Various books in landscape architecture once owned by Tschopp

To see the collection do a keyword search in the library catalogue for the phrase "Fred Tschopp Collection"