Itinerary: Mason & Wales Dunedin

With its origins within the apply shaped by William Mason (1810–1897) in Dunedin in 1862, Mason & Wales is New Zealand’s oldest architectural apply. Mason had labored in England and Australia earlier than transferring to Auckland in 1840, the place his outputs included the constructing now often known as Previous Authorities Home (1855–1956), after which on to Dunedin in 1862, the place the invention of gold signalled potential. He arrange partnership briefly with David Ross (1827–1908) after which, extra considerably, with William Clayton (1823–1877). Tasmanian-born Clayton had designed quite a few buildings there earlier than immigrating to Dunedin in 1863, once more attracted by the gold rush.

Mason & Clayton’s key buildings included the Colonial Museum in Wellington (1864–1865), Dunedin’s Publish Workplace (1864–1868) and the Otago Provincial Council Buildings (1867). None of those survives.

Mason had been elected to parliament in 1861 after which served as mayor of Dunedin (1865–1867). In semi-retirement, he lived on a North Otago farm from 1867. In the meantime, Clayton was appointed Colonial Architect in 1869 and moved to Wellington. Mason returned to Dunedin apply in 1871, with Nathaniel YA Wales (1832–1903) as his junior accomplice. Wales, additionally English, had immigrated to Dunedin by way of Melbourne and labored for Mason & Clayton from 1862 as a clerk of works after which as an architect. Mason retired absolutely within the mid-1870s, and Wales continued the apply. 

Like Mason, Wales served as a member of parliament and as mayor of Dunedin (1895–1896). Subsequent companions within the apply have included: Wales’ son, Patrick (Percy) Y Wales (1864–1939; President of the NZIA, 1913–1915); PY’s son, the second NYA Wales (1896–1980; President of the NZIA, 1955–1956); and NYA’s son, the third NYA Wales (1927–2011), who was often known as Niel and was made a accomplice in 1956. Ashley Muir (b. 1946) joined the agency in 1970. The present administrators are Francis Whitaker and Hamish Muir, son of Ashley.

Throughout greater than 150 years, the agency’s oeuvre has encapsulated the story of New Zealand structure, most notably of Dunedin structure – from colonial-era pluralism and gold rush exuberance to the gradual embrace of modernism, the adoption of regional inflections, a return to worldwide themes and, now, the response to environmental imperatives.

Greater than is the case in another New Zealand metropolis, Dunedin’s structure is related to cascading lineages of apply, by which older companions move the baton to kids, or corporations amalgamate and break up, as in Henry McDowell Smith’s genteel turn-of-the-Twentieth-century apply, which developed by way of a number of title adjustments and as we speak continues as Oakley Grey Architects. Lots of the metropolis’s present practices can whakapapa again to the Nineteenth century and these lineages typically contain a number of generations of the identical households, be they Wales, Wixon, McCoy, Muir or Oakley. It’s a lot simpler to trace the lineage of people who retain a longtime title, in contrast with people who find yourself with a string of names reflecting the roll-call of companions or administrators over time.

This raises the fascinating query of not simply how corporations evolve however how concepts do. Mason & Wales is a long-running agency however requirements have remained excessive; the map of notable Otago structure printed with this subject consists of Mason & Wales initiatives from 11 many years. Considerably, the agency remains to be a comparatively small one and, all through its historical past, the work of every period has been related to particular personalities. In different cities, we’re seeing more and more massive, long-running corporations, notably these centered on business work. A quandary faces every one as its dimension will increase and it drifts additional – in time and in strategy – from the personalities of the unique companions or administrators. Within the lifetime of such a agency, can a particular design stance be maintained because the line-up of key gamers continues to evolve? Can such practices generate a manner of distinguishing themselves from each other? And which of them will contribute to our architectural historical past as considerably as Mason & Wales has completed?

THE ITINERARY

01. 1865 – All Saints’ Church (Anglican)

786 Cumberland Road

Mason & Clayton’s All Saints’ is Dunedin’s oldest extant Anglican church. It’s attributed to Clayton, as is the transept and chancel addition of 1873, which Mason executed. The constructing is Early English Gothic Revival, in-built brick with polychromatic detailing, together with cream bricks and black and white tiles. It’s a Class 1 historic place. Lisburn Home, 15 Lisburn Avenue, Caversham (1865), has comparable architectural expression, whereas St Matthew’s Anglican Church, 28 Hope Road (1874), adopted Clayton’s departure and is extra usually Excessive Victorian Gothic Revival. Each are Class 1 historic locations.

02. 1871–1872 – Bishopscourt (former)

399 Highgate, Roslyn

Mason & Wales (M&W) produced a number of Presbyterian church buildings on this interval, together with these in Herbert (1866), Hampden (1870) and Mosgiel (1870), however Bishopscourt was one other Anglican fee, a home for Bishop Samuel Tarratt Nevill and his spouse. The bluestone exterior with limestone dressings initially included an octagonal turret, tall chimneys and a few 22 rooms. In 1913, the Presbyterian Church purchased the constructing and transformed it into a college (Columba Faculty), necessitating additions and alterations which had been additionally designed by M&W. It’s a Class 1 historic place.

03. 1878–1879 – Linden

22 Royal Terrace

Mason retired in 1874, and Linden is attributed to Nathaniel Wales. It was constructed for businessman Jacob Isaacs on the event of his marriage to Helene Michaelis. Each had been from Melbourne and linked to the Hallenstein clothes dynasty. The Dunedin residence was named after the Michaelis’ Melbourne household residence (now an artwork gallery) and makes reference to it in its central entry, flanking bay home windows and projecting verandahs supported on slim columns. The Dunedin constructing was constructed of plastered triple brick. It’s now the Dhargyey Buddhist Centre and a Class 1 historic place.

04. 1878–1879 – Garrison Corridor

8 Dowling Road

The Garrison Corridor was constructed for volunteer militias to fulfill and practise drills for responding to insurgence and acting at civic occasions. Such battalions and rifle associations had been widespread in Nineteenth-century New Zealand cities. In Dunedin, architect Nathaniel Wales was captain of the militia. The constructing is alleged to be within the Scottish Baronial custom, with heavy stone partitions and limestone dressings, together with quoins. The adjoining single-storey Orderly Constructing was added at 7–9 Burlington Road in 1897 to offer additional drill area. The 2 buildings collectively are a Class 1 historic place.

05. 1886 – NZ Insurance coverage Co Constructing (former)

49–51 Queens Gardens

NZI, designed by Nathaniel Wales, was in-built Dunedin’s growth time. It’s a three-storeyed palazzo, surpassing the interval’s extra typical two storeys, with a rusticated floor flooring, pilasters, pediments at parapet degree and a rounded nook to the intersection of Queens Gardens and Crawford Road. Close by, at 31–33 Thomas Burns Road, is M&W’s Otago Wool Shops constructing (1872), taken over by inventory and station brokers the New Zealand Mortgage and Mercantile Company Co in 1874 and prolonged in 1885, 1915 and 1929. Each buildings are individually listed and are included within the Harbourside Historic Space.

06. 1917 – Scott Constructing, College of Otago

260–266 Nice King Road

The Scott Constructing was constructed as a part of Lindo Ferguson’s imaginative and prescient for the Otago Medical College. The choice to find it close to the hospital reasonably than inside Otago’s major campus was controversial on the time. Not like many of the college’s outdated buildings, it’s classical – the popular tutorial language of the day. It’s a three-storey brick constructing with Ōamaru stone dressings and steel-framed home windows. It housed lecture theatres, specialist departments, a library and specimen museum, and employees and pupil amenities. It’s nonetheless utilized by the Medical College and is listed as Class 2.

07. 1946 – Otago Therapeutic Pool

140–154 Hanover Road

This constructing demonstrates varied modernising tendencies of the Forties. The concrete and brick exterior retains solely remnants of artwork deco detailing whereas, internally, bolstered concrete portal frames enable for an uninterrupted span throughout the principle swimming pool space. It was the primary massive (25×10 yards) pool in New Zealand to be constructed for therapeutic functions and has been utilized by the College of Physiotherapy at Otago for coaching functions and by folks enterprise bodily exercise for medical rehabilitation, corresponding to cardiac rehabilitation. It’s a Class 2 historic place.

08. 1963 – Wellcome Medical Analysis Institute,

College of Otago

22 Frederick Road

Constructed to accommodate the College of Otago Medical College’s analysis capabilities, the venture was worldwide in each conception and supply. Funded by the Wellcome Belief in England, this lengthy, modern slab is the entire package deal of worldwide modernism: strip home windows, brise-soleil shades, off-form and pebble-dashed concrete and a glassy penthouse, all set in lush planting. These timber have now grown as much as masks the principle façade however the exterior is, in any other case, nonetheless in pretty authentic situation. Refer NZIA Journal Sept 1963.

Followers of crisp modernism ought to pop throughout the street to the Class 1-listed and now not too long ago renovated Dental College (Ministry of Works, 1961).

09. 1969 – Arts Constructing (Burns Constructing),

College of Otago

95 Albany Road

This venture, like most college buildings of the period, offered a tower for teachers however left the coed and instructing areas down at floor degree – unlucky symbolism – however, as turned the sample on the Otago campus, the lecture theatres are expressed as dramatic sculptural volumes. The tower now seems to be extra subdued than it did when first constructed. The slender pre-cast balustrades – which made specific the design’s debt to Kenzo Tange’s influential Japanese city halls of the Fifties – have been eliminated and, as with a lot Dunedin brutalism, the tower’s uncooked concrete construction has been painted.

10. 1973 – Mason & Wales Places of work

46 York Place

Combining block partitions, cantilevered concrete and chisel level roofs, all enlivened internally by a dynamic timber construction, this venture will probably be in contrast by many viewers to Warren and Mahoney’s (WAM) Christchurch workplace of a decade earlier. Maybe capturing one thing of their respective moments in historical past, the place WAM’s Nineteen Sixties’ composition is vertiginous and expansive, M&W’s oil-shock period Seventies’ venture is horizontal and restrained. The constructing acquired an NZIA Native Award in 1973 and remains to be occupied by the M&W design workplace, in addition to its astonishing archive, overlaying the agency’s whole historical past. A cupboard nonetheless incorporates the water-coloured drawings of the 150-year-old ‘Job File 1’. Refer NZIA Journal March 1974.

11. 1982 – Otago Harbour Board Administration Constructing 

12 Wharf Road

This venture artfully marries the geometric, glassy vocabulary that was common within the Nineteen Eighties with extremely contextual nautical imagery. Standing over the water on piles, the constructing has a prowed kind and elevated deck, topped with funnel-like kinds hiding rooftop companies. M&W accomplished one other mirror-glass workplace for the Harbour Board at 15 Seashore Road, Port Chalmers, in 1980. In a exceptional run, each buildings for the Harbour Board gained NZIA Nationwide Awards simply two years aside. Nevertheless, in an act of each cultural vandalism and environmental villainy, the Harbour Board has slated the well-maintained Port Chalmers constructing for demolition and substitute with a brand new constructing simply metres away.

12. 1986 – DSIR Constructing