A November day will be a day to celebrate Dunedin's recovery and future.
November 27, 2025 is the centennial anniversary of the opening of Dunedin's outrageously successful South Seas Exhibition. It ran for six months and attracted more than three million visitors. I want to propose that we ought to repeat that outstanding feat in 2025. What better way to celebrate Dunedin's recovery from the Covid-19 crisis - and redevelopment of the Harbour Basin (it must continue).
There is vacant land next to the Basin between Kitchener St and the foreshore; an eminently suitable site for an exhibition. More land can be reclaimed if needed. Indeed, as the 1925 Exhibition bequeathed Logan Park to the city through reclamation of the then Lake Logan, reclamation for a 2025 exhibition could give us the commencement of protection of those low lying areas.
Dunedin should challenge the world to come and erect exhibition structures that utilise the harbour's solar, tidal and wind resources so as to become self-contained places, collecting their own water and recycling their own wastes, and capturing and using their entire energy needs, and using their rooftops to provide greenery and a vegetarian's paradise.
The prospect of a repeat exhibition should spur completion the Basin's redevelopment. The proposed hotel, for example, must become an attractive proposition, as the developer would be assured of high if not full occupancy while the redevelopment proceeds, and while an exhibition is prepared and then put to use. The workforce in situ for the redevelopment of the hotel and other proposed buildings would have continued employment building and then helping run the exhibition proper, and later taking it apart when it closes. And there are bound to be numerous unused cruise liners around which could be moored in the Basin to provide accommodation for the workforce, in the same way as the Wanganella was used at Manapouri.
Then think on to the opportunities that would open with full scale redevelopment of the Basin and the conduct of an exhibition. The spin-offs to Dunedin's suppliers and manufacturers, the region's winegrowers, caterers, and restauranteurs, and the primary producers and orchardists. Even the buses might run at a profit!
The possibilities are endless.
And what of the harbour itself?
Otago Harbour is a magic place, full of life and energy and a great place for showing off. I tremble at the thought of the fireworks displays that could occur there. (Some of us remember Otago's 1948 Centennial display there. That was a show!). On the water we might see tall ships in full sail; an America's Cup race to the Heads and back; a circumnavigation of the world along the roaring forties (Harbour to the Horn and back); and maybe the Sydney-Hobart for once could become the Sydney-Dunedin-Hobart, and why not? And around the harbour's perimeter we might see amazing water sculptures and a myriad of other delights and fantasies.
And what of our other Dunedin institutions during this time? The mind boggles at what the University of Otago, Hocken Library, Toitu and Otago Museum could come up with. Maybe the Art Gallery could arrange for Michaelangelo's David to be seen in the lower Octagon (again, why not?).
The 1925 exhibition demonstrated what Dunedin can do. James Speight, our iconic brewer, led the 1925 team that nurtured and conducted the South Seas exhibition. We have their capable equals in our midst. And I can think of one “Taylormade” for the job of leader. But they alone couldn't do it. A repeat exhibition would require all of us to jump in and help. Just as this Convid19 pandemic is demonstrating, working together works wonders. That's no problem for Dunedinites. Let's do it.
