Christina van Bohemen

Van Bohemen grew up in Havelock North, the youngest of five children. Her father had emigrated from Holland in 1951 and her mother from England in 1949. She attended Erskine College, a Catholic boarding school in Wellington followed by Victoria University of Wellington, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.[1]

After graduating, she travelled to New York, where her brother Gerard van Bohemen was working as a diplomat, and to London, where she worked in administrative roles in architectural practices. She met New Zealand architects Chris Moller and Alastair Scott there who encouraged her to return to university to study architecture. Returning to Wellington, she started a degree in architecture aged 29.[1]

In 1996, van Bohemen moved to Auckland and began working at architectural firm Jasmax.[1][6] In 2001, she left Jasmax and founded architecture practice Sills van Bohemen with her partner Aaron Sills.[1] The practice specialises in urban design and residential architecture.[7]

In 2010 she was appointed a member of the New Zealand Registered Architects' Board.[8] She was re-appointed for a further three-year term in 2013.[9]

In 2016, in her role as president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, van Bohemen became involved in the controversy over plans by the Department of Conservation to demolish the Aniwaniwa Visitors Centre at Lake Waikaremoana. The building had been designed by John Scott, a prominent Māori architect. Van Bohemen criticised the Department of Conservation for failing to maintain the building and failing to conserve New Zealand's heritage.[10][11]