Dunedin's built heritage is central and essential to the city.
It engenders a sense of history and pride, and is beauty to behold. Spectacular examples — the railway station, First Church, the courthouse, the former banks in Princes St, the Otago Boys’ main block, the university clocktower and so on — are complemented by hundreds of other buildings to create an ambience.
Nowhere in Australia or New Zealand can match the city’s breadth of beautiful historic buildings, except perhaps to some degree Melbourne. This gives the city, along with its wildlife and coastal scenery, striking points of difference and competitive advantage. Residents revel in being surrounded by the past and visitors admire vistas every which way.
It should go without saying, therefore, that preservation of character is essential. Awareness of these riches has grown. Progress, such as the redevelopment of the Vogel St warehouse precinct, reflect improved attitudes and strong heritage recognition.
It was perfectly understandable, therefore, when the initial reaction to a deck being placed adjacent to part of the front of the railway station was one of horror. The station, inside and out, is a treasure. It stands as a bookend to lower Stuart St and sets off a cluster of some of Dunedin’s finest buildings. It looks back towards the city centre and is a tourist magnet.
In this case, however, the detail was not devilish but encouraging. For a start, the deck for the Cobb & Co restaurant was at the north end, away from the central station view and on a little used patch of grass.
The deck design was modified after consultation with Heritage New Zealand, and Laurie Forbes, who has invested in historic reuse and is credited with much good work in Dunedin, has been involved in the project. Crucially, the deck will be free-standing and can be shifted at a later date.
It was granted resource and building consent, and a public hearing was held because it would occupy public land. Among the hearing commissioner’s conclusions was that the deck would encourage greater use of the space.
While such decisions will never please everyone, open minds are needed in response to development proposals. Use and reuse of historic buildings are important for their vitality and, often, their survival. Dunedin cannot exist as an historic and static museum.
A similar underlying attitude should be taken to the prospect of a hotel in the Filleul St car park. Caution and wariness are in order but not reflex negativity.
Condemnation of the first hotel proposal was widespread, and the backers commissioned a new design. This has been greeted with mixed reactions, and Mayor Dave Cull said the developer appeared to have listened to earlier feedback. He made the point that trying to "mimic" the heritage surroundings would be "false". Instead, the design "acknowledged" them.
Because the hotel would soar well above the site’s 10m zoning height limit, a resource consent is required. Inevitably, there will be opposition, including from those whose views are affected.
On the other hand, the CBD in Dunedin and its margins already feature a mixture of styles, types and eras, unlike say the precincts of some European cities.
Retired Dunedin architect Norman Ledgerwood, in a letter to this newspaper, has praised the different angles and reflections that would be created and suggested the proposal presented "one of the best inner-city designs from the last half century". However, art critic Peter Entwisle maintains a glass-clad structure close to heritage buildings is a most unfortunate contrast.
The aesthetics and reactions to architecture are like those to public art, unavoidably prompting differing views. Because both development and heritage are vital to Dunedin, the city and its citizens must consider such projects with minds open to possibilities.
