Ian Lochhead taught Art History at the University of Canterbury from 1981 to 2014. He has written extensively on the history of New Zealand architecture from the colonial period to the Christchurch School. His book, `A Dream of Spires: Benjamin Mountfort and the Gothic Revival’, was published by CUP in 1999. He was an early advocate for the restoration of the Christchurch Town Hall following the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes; his article `Let our public living room live again’, was published in `The Press’ on 20 March 2012. The Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand made him a life member in 2013.