University of Otago Registry Building
Encyclopedia
The University of Otago
Registry Building, also known as the Clocktower Building, is a Victorian and later structure in the city of Dunedin
, New Zealand
. It stands next to the banks of the Water of Leith
and is constructed from contrasting dark Leith Valley basalt
and Oamaru stone
, with a foundation of Port Chalmers
breccia
. The building houses the administrative centre of the university, and has the office of the Vice-Chancellor
. It has a Category I listing with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust
.
It is the principal element of the Clocktower complex, the group of Gothic revival buildings at the heart of the University of Otago’s campus. (University of Otago Clocktower complex
.) The most prominent of the group it was designed and re-designed by Maxwell Bury
(1825–1912) and Edmund Anscombe
(1874–1948), between the 1870s and the 1920s. This resulted in a revised geometry and a change to the original conception.
Bury first conceived a classical building which he re-dressed in the Gothic manner to suit the university council’s desires. This is like the genesis of Sir Charles Barry
’s and A. W. N. Pugin’s designs for the Palace of Westminster
which is symmetrical in plan but late Gothic in its realisation. For his principal range Bury proposed a building with a single forward gable at its northern extremity, a clock tower and gabled entrance at its centre, and another, single forward gable at the south, housing a chapel. By 1879 the tower and the northern extension from it had been built.
Much later Anscombe extended this stub to the south. He designed the Oliver Wing, built in 1914, and the science extension, opened in 1922. He produced an asymmetrical composition in which the greater extent to the south was balanced by its terminal double gables.
One might regret the non-completion of Bury’s original design but Anscombe’s extrapolation is a tour-de-force. The additional length makes the building more imposing while its subtle asymmetry adds to its character. While some Gothic revival buildings seem playful – like stage sets and not really convincing – the result here is different. The whole has an impressive asperity - it is austere - and at the same time, entertaining.
In 1968 Ted McCoy
drew a parallel between this building and Sir George Gilbert Scott
’s for Glasgow University which was finished in 1870. There are similarities although the settings are different: Scott’s building is on a hilltop while this lies beside a river. Scott’s building’s main elevation, like the one Bury initially designed for Otago, is symmetrical with its tower and entrance at the centre. But the Otago building, as Anscombe completed it, gains something, because its disproportionately long southward reach exceeds one’s expectation. Also, its apparently pragmatic extrapolation supports the impression it is a medieval building, extended over centuries without undue deference to an original plan.
The Otago building’s tower is also something like Scott’s for Glasgow, or his St Pancras Station tower in London. They have their origins in Flemish and Netherlandish civic buildings of the late Middle Ages but in this revived, Victorian form are part of a family which includes A.W. N. Pugin’s for Scarisbrick Hall
and the tower housing Big Ben on the Palace of Westminster.
For a long time the Otago tower was blind but in the 1930s Thomas Sidey, a local politician and a member of the university council, paid for a clock to be installed. In the 1950s the Ministry of Works recommended demolishing the building as an earthquake risk. Instead the university council strengthened it, with visible tie-rods, in the early 1960s. The original tall chimney stacks were first simplified and eventually removed.
The chamber behind the north gable which used to house the library has accommodated the university council since 1965. The caretaker’s house, visibly incorporated into the rear of the northernmost compartment externally, is now internally part of the administrative suite. Also in the 1960s part of the inner quadrangle wall, the east elevation, was elaborately demolished and rebuilt a short distance further eastward, blurring some original features. The tower’s stone pinnacles were replaced with stainless steel caps, rendered in cement, in the same decade. The steeply raked upper and lower Oliver lecture theatres were stripped out in the 1980s. Nevertheless the exterior and some of the principal interior spaces, such as the tiled entrance and its handsome staircase, are much as they were when they were built.
The old Canterbury College
’s clock tower building in Christchurch, now part of the Christchurch Arts Centre, is a directly comparable, if lesser structure in New Zealand. It was designed by Benjamin Mountfort
, opened in 1877 and became part of a larger, Gothic Revival complex. The Hunter Building
at Victoria University of Wellington
is a more distant parallel. It was opened in 1904, designed by Penty & Blake and represents the Jacobethan
manner. Still more distant in time, style and method of construction is the University of Auckland
's clock tower building, also known as the Old Arts Building, completed in 1926 and designed by R.A. Lippincott in a very loosely interpreted Gothic manner. (It was built with a steel reinforced concrete frame.)
In Australia Edmund Blacket
’s principal range for the University of Sydney
is another building of parallel purpose and period, as is the University of Adelaide
’s Venetian Gothic
Mitchell Building, designed by William McMinn
in 1882, although that is smaller than its Sydney or Dunedin counterparts.
The principal building for Ormond College, an affiliate of the University of Melbourne
, is also comparable. While it houses a residential college, not a university or its administration, it is another Victorian, university Gothic Revival building and was directly inspired by Scott’s structure for Glasgow. Its oldest part was opened in 1881; it was expanded in stages up to 1893 and then further in the 1920s and later. Like the Otago building it forms part of a quadrangle and has a clock tower. It was designed by Joseph Reed
for Presbyterian proprietors. It is undoubtedly a fine building but its symmetrical principal façade lacks the grand extension of Otago’s comparable elevation and the austerity of the latter’s rusticated bluestone. Nevertheless Ormond College matches, indeed it probably exceeds, the Dunedin building’s playfulness.
All these revivalist structures aimed to create what was really an illusion: as they were intended for universities, it was specifically that of a medieval cloister. They had to serve a practical purpose but needed also to support this fiction. Any assessment of them has to weigh how well they do that.
Among its peers the University of Otago’s clocktower building is distinguished by its scale and elaboration, but also by the degree of conviction it succeeds in bringing to this fantasy. The result is a structure of considerable dignity and grandeur.
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
Registry Building, also known as the Clocktower Building, is a Victorian and later structure in the city of Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. It stands next to the banks of the Water of Leith
Water of Leith, New Zealand
The Water of Leith , is a small river in the South Island of New Zealand.It rises to the north of the city of Dunedin, flowing for 14 kilometres southeast through the northern part of the city and the campus of the University of Otago before reaching the Otago Harbour...
and is constructed from contrasting dark Leith Valley basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
and Oamaru stone
Oamaru stone
Oamaru stone is a hard, compact limestone, quarried at Weston, near Oamaru in Otago, New Zealand.The stone is used for building purposes, especially where ornate moulding is required. The finished stonework has a creamy, sandy colour...
, with a foundation of Port Chalmers
Port Chalmers
Port Chalmers is a suburb and the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, with a population of 3,000. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast from Dunedin's city centre....
breccia
Breccia
Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....
. The building houses the administrative centre of the university, and has the office of the Vice-Chancellor
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
. It has a Category I listing with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust
New Zealand Historic Places Trust
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust is a non-profit trust that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage buildings in New Zealand...
.
It is the principal element of the Clocktower complex, the group of Gothic revival buildings at the heart of the University of Otago’s campus. (University of Otago Clocktower complex
University of Otago Clocktower complex
The University of Otago Clocktower complex is a group of architecturally and historically significant buildings in the centre of the University of Otago campus. Founded in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1869, the University of Otago was the expression of the province's Scottish founders' commitment to...
.) The most prominent of the group it was designed and re-designed by Maxwell Bury
Maxwell Bury
Maxwell Bury was an English-born architect who was active in New Zealand in the 19th century. He is best remembered for his buildings for the University of Otago.-Life:...
(1825–1912) and Edmund Anscombe
Edmund Anscombe
Edmund Anscombe was one of the most important figures to shape the architectural and urban fabric of New Zealand. He was important, not only because of the prolific nature of his practice and the quality of his work, but also because of the range and the scale of his built and speculative projects...
(1874–1948), between the 1870s and the 1920s. This resulted in a revised geometry and a change to the original conception.
Bury first conceived a classical building which he re-dressed in the Gothic manner to suit the university council’s desires. This is like the genesis of Sir Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
’s and A. W. N. Pugin’s designs for the Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
which is symmetrical in plan but late Gothic in its realisation. For his principal range Bury proposed a building with a single forward gable at its northern extremity, a clock tower and gabled entrance at its centre, and another, single forward gable at the south, housing a chapel. By 1879 the tower and the northern extension from it had been built.
Much later Anscombe extended this stub to the south. He designed the Oliver Wing, built in 1914, and the science extension, opened in 1922. He produced an asymmetrical composition in which the greater extent to the south was balanced by its terminal double gables.
One might regret the non-completion of Bury’s original design but Anscombe’s extrapolation is a tour-de-force. The additional length makes the building more imposing while its subtle asymmetry adds to its character. While some Gothic revival buildings seem playful – like stage sets and not really convincing – the result here is different. The whole has an impressive asperity - it is austere - and at the same time, entertaining.
In 1968 Ted McCoy
Ted McCoy
Edward John "Ted" McCoy ONZM is a retired Dunedin, New Zealand architect. He designed the sanctuary of St Pauls Cathedral, completed in 1970 and the Richardson Building of the University of Otago, completed in 1979, among many others...
drew a parallel between this building and Sir George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
’s for Glasgow University which was finished in 1870. There are similarities although the settings are different: Scott’s building is on a hilltop while this lies beside a river. Scott’s building’s main elevation, like the one Bury initially designed for Otago, is symmetrical with its tower and entrance at the centre. But the Otago building, as Anscombe completed it, gains something, because its disproportionately long southward reach exceeds one’s expectation. Also, its apparently pragmatic extrapolation supports the impression it is a medieval building, extended over centuries without undue deference to an original plan.
The Otago building’s tower is also something like Scott’s for Glasgow, or his St Pancras Station tower in London. They have their origins in Flemish and Netherlandish civic buildings of the late Middle Ages but in this revived, Victorian form are part of a family which includes A.W. N. Pugin’s for Scarisbrick Hall
Scarisbrick Hall
Scarisbrick Hall is a country house situated just to the south-east of the village of Scarisbrick in Lancashire, England.-History:Scarisbrick Hall was the ancestral home of the Scarisbrick family and dates back to the time of King Stephen . The Scarisbrick family lived on the site from 1238 until...
and the tower housing Big Ben on the Palace of Westminster.
For a long time the Otago tower was blind but in the 1930s Thomas Sidey, a local politician and a member of the university council, paid for a clock to be installed. In the 1950s the Ministry of Works recommended demolishing the building as an earthquake risk. Instead the university council strengthened it, with visible tie-rods, in the early 1960s. The original tall chimney stacks were first simplified and eventually removed.
The chamber behind the north gable which used to house the library has accommodated the university council since 1965. The caretaker’s house, visibly incorporated into the rear of the northernmost compartment externally, is now internally part of the administrative suite. Also in the 1960s part of the inner quadrangle wall, the east elevation, was elaborately demolished and rebuilt a short distance further eastward, blurring some original features. The tower’s stone pinnacles were replaced with stainless steel caps, rendered in cement, in the same decade. The steeply raked upper and lower Oliver lecture theatres were stripped out in the 1980s. Nevertheless the exterior and some of the principal interior spaces, such as the tiled entrance and its handsome staircase, are much as they were when they were built.
University of Canterbury
The University of Canterbury , New Zealand's second-oldest university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand...
’s clock tower building in Christchurch, now part of the Christchurch Arts Centre, is a directly comparable, if lesser structure in New Zealand. It was designed by Benjamin Mountfort
Benjamin Mountfort
Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of that country's most prominent 19th century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique architectural identity and culture, and was appointed the first official Provincial...
, opened in 1877 and became part of a larger, Gothic Revival complex. The Hunter Building
Hunter Building
The Hunter Building is the original building of the Victoria University of Wellington campus in Wellington, New Zealand. Built mostly of red brick in the Gothic revival style, it was opened by the Governor of New Zealand, Lord Plunket, in 1904, although construction was not completed until 1906...
at Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...
is a more distant parallel. It was opened in 1904, designed by Penty & Blake and represents the Jacobethan
Jacobethan
Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...
manner. Still more distant in time, style and method of construction is the University of Auckland
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
's clock tower building, also known as the Old Arts Building, completed in 1926 and designed by R.A. Lippincott in a very loosely interpreted Gothic manner. (It was built with a steel reinforced concrete frame.)
In Australia Edmund Blacket
Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St...
’s principal range for the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
is another building of parallel purpose and period, as is the University of Adelaide
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
’s Venetian Gothic
Venetian Gothic architecture
Venetian Gothic is a term given to an architectural style combining use of the Gothic lancet arch with Byzantine and Moorish architecture influences. The style originated in 14th century Venice with the confluence of Byzantine styles from Constantinople, Arab influences from Moorish Spain and early...
Mitchell Building, designed by William McMinn
William McMinn
William McMinn was an Australian surveyor and architect, based in Adelaide. He was born in Newry, County Down, Ireland, and came to Adelaide at the age of six....
in 1882, although that is smaller than its Sydney or Dunedin counterparts.
The principal building for Ormond College, an affiliate of the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
, is also comparable. While it houses a residential college, not a university or its administration, it is another Victorian, university Gothic Revival building and was directly inspired by Scott’s structure for Glasgow. Its oldest part was opened in 1881; it was expanded in stages up to 1893 and then further in the 1920s and later. Like the Otago building it forms part of a quadrangle and has a clock tower. It was designed by Joseph Reed
Joseph Reed (architect)
Joseph Reed , a Cornishman by birth, was probably the most influential Victorian era architect in Melbourne, Australia. He established a practice, Reed and Barnes in Melbourne in 1852. The practice now known as Bates Smart is one of the oldest continually operating in the world.Reed's buildings...
for Presbyterian proprietors. It is undoubtedly a fine building but its symmetrical principal façade lacks the grand extension of Otago’s comparable elevation and the austerity of the latter’s rusticated bluestone. Nevertheless Ormond College matches, indeed it probably exceeds, the Dunedin building’s playfulness.
All these revivalist structures aimed to create what was really an illusion: as they were intended for universities, it was specifically that of a medieval cloister. They had to serve a practical purpose but needed also to support this fiction. Any assessment of them has to weigh how well they do that.
Among its peers the University of Otago’s clocktower building is distinguished by its scale and elaboration, but also by the degree of conviction it succeeds in bringing to this fantasy. The result is a structure of considerable dignity and grandeur.