Government Building Historic Places Trust Report (1988)

PROPOSAL FOR CLASSIFICATION

BUILDINGS CLASSIFICATION COMMITTEE REPORT

NAME OF BUILDING: Government Building (Former Post Office), Tauranga
ADDRESS: 41 Harington Street, Tauranga
OWNER: Government Property Services, State Services Commission
OWNER'S ADDRESS: Government Property Services, State Services Commission,
P.O. Box 422, Private Bag, Hamilton / Wellington
OCCUPIER(S): Currently empty

DATE OF BUILDING: 1905–6

ARCHITECT/ENGINEER OR DESIGNER: Designed under the aegis of John Campbell (1857–1942)

SIGNIFICANCE OF ARCHITECT/ENGINEER/DESIGNER

John Campbell was the first architect to hold the title of Government Architect in New Zealand. He was also one of the most notable proponents of the Imperial Baroque style of architecture in the country.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 4 July 1857, Campbell studied architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. He was articled to John Gordon, one-time president of the Glasgow Institute of Architects. Campbell arrived in New Zealand in 1882, a fully trained and highly competent architect.

After a brief period as draughtsman with Mason and Wales, one of Dunedin's most respected firms, he was appointed draughtsman with the Dunedin branch of the Public Works Department in 1883. His first known work, a design for the Dunedin Railway Station, reveals that he was the first architect in New Zealand to work in the new English Baroque style developed by progressive British architects in the late nineteenth century.

The richness of design and distinctively British character of such architecture—evident in the Baroque detailing of Campbell’s Dunedin Railway Station—was conceived as a conscious architectural reference to the Baroque architecture of England. It was also a deliberate expression of British prosperity and imperialism.

With Campbell’s appointment to the Head Office of the Public Works Department in Wellington in 1883, the Baroque style of his early Railway Station design became the norm for government buildings erected throughout New Zealand. Some of his best-known works are the Dunedin Gaol (1896), the Dunedin Law Courts (1899–1902), and the Wellington Public Trust Office (1905–8).

The crowning achievement of his career is the Parliament Buildings. Campbell competed against other New Zealand architects and, with Claude Ernest Paton, won the architectural competition for its design in 1911.

He was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1905, testifying to the esteem in which his work was held in Britain and his status as Government Architect of a colony of the Empire. Campbell was also an inaugural member of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, thereby promoting the same architectural standards and professional practices championed by the R.I.B.A. in Britain.

CONSTRUCTION

The building was erected in brick with some inner partitions constructed in wood. The lower storey was finished in banded cement stained dull red, and the upper portion was cream-coloured roughcast. The wooden window frames were painted white and the roof covered with Marseilles tiles. The interior was generally plastered and painted.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION (STYLE)

The style of the building is Edwardian Baroque. It has a rusticated ground floor, and the end bays of the Willow and Harington Street facades are topped by open-bed segmental pediments with decorative carving. The corner of Willow and Harington Streets is marked by a domed tower with segmental pediments over the main entrances (one of which has since been converted to a window).

The first-floor windows have Gibbs surrounds, and cartouches are included in the design. The ultimate source of the architectural elements used is English architecture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, popular amongst Victorian and Edwardian architects. The domed tower, for example, has its ancestry in those designed by Wren for Greenwich (1704 onwards). Similarly, Gibbs surrounds are derived from the work of James Gibbs (from whom they take their name).

Such architecture was considered by Victorian and Edwardian designers to be distinctively British. By architectural reference to the great Baroque buildings of England, Campbell aimed to give architectural expression in New Zealand to the colony’s allegiance to Britain and the imperial ideal.

MODIFICATIONS

Substantial additions were made to the building in 1916 under Campbell’s direction, supervised by the local Resident Engineer of the Public Works Department, J. Hannah. These were erected behind the main Willow and Harington Street facades, which remained unchanged.

Although the exterior has since been painted cream, disguising the rich colouration of the original concrete, it remains largely intact. Inside, some rooms have been subdivided, but the courtroom retains much of its former grandeur.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

The Tauranga Post Office is significant as perhaps the last extant post office building remaining intact in a style once common throughout New Zealand. It is also one of the few remaining exuberant Baroque designs by John Campbell that retains its segmental pediments, a hallmark of his work.

Its architectural vitality is unparalleled in Tauranga. By stylistic reference to the work of such distinguished British architects as Sir Christopher Wren, James Gibbs and John Vanbrugh, the building testifies to the continued importance of Britain as a source of inspiration for New Zealand architects well into the twentieth century.

Its composition—with the asymmetric placement of a single tower—was a feature of post offices erected between c.1900 and c.1914, making dramatic use of the raised site.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Although the Government Buildings, Tauranga, were designed to house a wide range of departments (including a courtroom, lands office and customs office), its design is closely related to post office buildings erected in the early twentieth century.

The growth of state services under the Liberal Government (1890–1911) and the expansion of postal services throughout New Zealand prior to the First World War saw the construction of many such buildings. Comparable examples were erected at Wanganui (1902), Carterton (1903), Greymouth (1909), and Westport (1913). Tauranga’s Government Buildings are one of the few remaining intact, illustrative of a key period when the post office was the focal point and architectural statement of provincial towns.

The first postmaster to serve in the building, C.F. Nicholas, was a notable Tauranga figure: postmaster (1903–09), Lay Reader at Holy Trinity Church, President of the Tauranga Musical Society, office-bearer in local cricket and regatta clubs, and a member of the bowling club. Postmasters were key business and social figures in such communities. Tauranga’s population was only about 5,000 by the 1930s.

The first Stipendiary Magistrate to work in the building, Lieutenant-Colonel John Mackintosh Roberts (1840–1929), was also a notable figure in New Zealand’s early history. At the start of the Waikato War his farm buildings were burned by hostile Māori, and Roberts joined the Forest Rangers. He gained his ensigncy in November 1863, was promoted lieutenant in March 1864, and later became Magistrate at Rotorua (1868).

He served under Von Tempsky at the relief of Turuturumokai, was left in command there, and was awarded the New Zealand Cross in 1876. Roberts was appointed Magistrate at Tauranga c.1893 and was known for bringing “a cool judgement to the intractable racial problem” both as a magistrate and a senior officer.

TOWNSCAPE / LANDMARK SIGNIFICANCE

The building is a notable landmark in Tauranga for both its distinctive architectural design and its clock tower. Its siting on the terrace overlooking the harbour is striking.

REFERENCES

Primary:

• Ministry of Works and Development, Wellington, Card Index to Plan Records

• Scottish Register Office, Edinburgh (John Campbell’s Birth Certificate)

• Registrar-General’s Office, Wellington (John Campbell’s Death Certificate)

• National Archives, P.W.O. 208030, Staff Records, Register A. W35/2 i, W16

• R.I.B.A. Library, London (Campbell’s Fellowship application papers)

• Bay of Plenty Times, 24 June 1904; 23 April 1906; 11 March 1916

Published:

• A Brief History of Public Buildings in New Zealand

• A.C. Bellamy (ed.), Tauranga 1002–1902

• Roslyn Noonan, By Design

• G.H. Scholefield, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. II

Unpublished:

• Hodgson, G.L., The Public Building 1905: Formerly Tauranga Post and Telegraph Office, District Court, Lands Office, Public Library and Customs Office, November 1987

• Richardson, Peter, An Architecture of Empire: The Government Buildings of John Campbell in New Zealand, M.A. thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1988