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A bach (pronounced 'batch' ) (also called a crib in the southern half of the South Island) is a small, often modest holiday home or beach house in New Zealand. Baches are an iconic part of the country's history and culture. In the middle of the 20th century, they symbolized the beach holiday lifestyle that was becoming more accessible to the middle class.
Baches began to gain popularity in the 1950s as roads improved and the increasing availability of cars allowed for middle-class beach holidays, often to the same beach every year. With yearly return trips being made, baches began to spring up in many family vacation spots.
In more recent times the basic bach has been replaced by the modern "holiday house", which is more substantial, more expensive (reflecting increases in affluence, and vastly increased coastal land values) and usually professionally built (due to stricter building codes). Another important change has been the subdivision of coastal land, bringing increasing numbers of residents and visitors, along with traffic, cafes, mobile phone coverage, craft shops, and other conveniences, to what were originally empty beaches and bush-filled gullies. Some bach-dotted beaches of the 1950s have today become suburban areas flourishing with life and new culture.
Resource Management Act
(Department of the Environment; see 'existing use' in the actual act text) As such they are quite prized, even though authorities typically look unfavourably on proposals to convert them into full residential buildings.
A bach (pronounced 'batch' ) (also called a crib in the southern half of the South Island) is a small, often modest holiday home or beach house in New Zealand. Baches are an iconic part of the country's history and culture. In the middle of the 20th century, they symbolized the beach holiday lifestyle that was becoming more accessible to the middle class.
Baches began to gain popularity in the 1950s as roads improved and the increasing availability of cars allowed for middle-class beach holidays, often to the same beach every year. With yearly return trips being made, baches began to spring up in many family vacation spots.
Etymology
''Bach'' was originally thought to be short forbachelor pad
A bachelor pad is a home (''pad'') in which a bachelor or bachelors (single men) live. The exact standards on what constitutes a bachelor pad are often ambiguous and debated but one definition describes it as:
"A 'bachelor pad' is a slang term ...
, but they tended to be family holiday homes. An alternative theory for the origin of the word is that ' is the Welsh word for "small" and "little". The phrase "Tŷ Bach" (small house) is used for outbuildings. Sizeable populations of Welsh miners relocated to New Zealand during mining booms..
Construction
Post-World War II
They are almost always small structures, usually made of cheap or recycled material like fibrolite ( asbestos cement sheet), corrugated iron, or used timber. They were influenced by the backwoods cabins and sheds of the early settlers and farmers. Other baches used acaravan
Caravan or caravans may refer to:
Transport and travel
*Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together
**Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop
*Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals
*Convoy, a group of veh ...
as the core of the structure and built extensions onto it. Many cities were dismantling tram systems in the 1950s, and old trams were sometimes used as baches, most noticeably on the coast of the Coromandel Peninsula on the Firth of Thames, to which more than 100 trams were relocated.
A reconstructed example of a typical bach from the 1950s can be found in the National Maritime Museum on Princes Wharf in central Auckland. The period-furnished bach is complemented with an adjacent beach shop with original products from that time.
While older baches tend to be fibrolite lean-to structures, modern kit-set buildings are becoming popular among bach owners. Some figures estimate that more than 50,000 baches exist around New Zealand (population million people).
Recent times
Early baches rarely enjoyed amenities like connections to the water and electricity grid or indoor toilets. They were simply furnished, often with secondhand furniture.
In more recent times the basic bach has been replaced by the modern "holiday house", which is more substantial, more expensive (reflecting increases in affluence, and vastly increased coastal land values) and usually professionally built (due to stricter building codes). Another important change has been the subdivision of coastal land, bringing increasing numbers of residents and visitors, along with traffic, cafes, mobile phone coverage, craft shops, and other conveniences, to what were originally empty beaches and bush-filled gullies. Some bach-dotted beaches of the 1950s have today become suburban areas flourishing with life and new culture.
Legal status
Old baches often have "existing use" rights under the 1991 Resource Management Act in areas where newerplanning
Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is consi ...
regulations would not allow even such modest residential or part-time residential buildings.(Department of the Environment; see 'existing use' in the actual act text) As such they are quite prized, even though authorities typically look unfavourably on proposals to convert them into full residential buildings.
See also
* Dacha *Allotment
Allotment may refer to:
* Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887
* Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed s ...
References
{{Reflist Architecture in New Zealand New Zealand slang House types New Zealand culture