Heart of glass

WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS • IMAGERY: AMANDA TRAYES

Every day is a blooming marvel at the Domain Wintergardens

There’s only one feature that causes a stink at the Domain Wintergardens in Auckland – and it’s supposed to. The Amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, had hundreds of visitors to the tropical house in January testing their ability to remain upright while taking in its pungent aroma. The Indonesian native, which can take up to seven years to bloom, is just one attraction of many that make the Wintergardens glasshouses a truly memorable place to visit.

The Domain has been entertaining Aucklanders since it was declared a place of public recreation in 1844. Work started on the Wintergardens during World War I and by the late 1920s most of what we see today had been built: the nonheated Temperate/Cool House for flowering plants; the Tropical/ Hot House, heated to an average of 28°C; the Fernery; and the connecting landscaped courtyard.

Statues and a sunken pond were added by the mid-1950s to complete the heritage attraction, providing a perfect open-air space in which children could run around – as long as they were aware that any cutting of corners could result in a watery end to the day.

Heritage New Zealand Senior Heritage Advisor (Listing) Martin Jones says the Category 1 Wintergardens are considered one of the earliest remaining purposebuilt and planned botanical structures in New Zealand.

They were collectively designed by William Gummer (Temperate/Cool House) and the architectural practice of Gummer and Ford (Tropical/Hot House and Fernery) – among the foremost architects in the country at the time. From a technological perspective, the Wintergardens represent an early example of steel and glass construction in New Zealand.

“Also known as ‘plant palaces’, the houses reflect interest in the natural world in early 20thcentury New Zealand society – particularly exotic flora from around the globe – and a growing enthusiasm for New Zealand species in the 1920s,” says Martin.

“The Fernery is notable for its display of New Zealand plants, some of which may have originated from a collection that won an award to encourage the appreciation and cultivation of native flora in 1926.

“The houses are also significant for their links with the Auckland Industrial, Agricultural and Mining Exhibition in 1913-14, and the role of public parks – such as the Auckland Domain – as places of education and recreation.”

The houses and gardens were seen as an important step in gentrifying the Domain,

LOCATION

The Auckland Domain is one of the largest parks in the city and is located in the central suburb of Grafton.

which had gained a reputation in some quarters as a haunt for undesirables. Today it is very much a ‘Wintergarden wonderland’ that is open daily all year and offers free entry.

Comments are very favourable on travel review websites, with one visitor from California declaring that the tropical garden “was like something out of Jurassic Park” and an Argentinian tourist declaring it “the most beautiful wintergarden that I ever saw”. One local chap commented that “even a bloke who does not like flowers will be chilled out” when visiting.

“The Wintergardens are an extraordinary piece of New Zealand’s heritage – an architecturally significant, botanically enriched civic space, symbolic of the emergence of New Zealand’s post-colonial identity,” says Auckland Council Manager Community Parks and Places Martin van Jaarsveld.

“The Wintergardens are a real hit with visiting cruise ships, with many of them running charter buses to the Domain to visit the gardens. Tourists from these ships often give staff really positive feedback, commenting on what a wonderful treasure the gardens are.”

The Domain and Wintergardens are covered under Auckland Council’s full facilities maintenance contract. This covers work including window cleaning, gutter clearing, building washdowns, boiler and pond maintenance and, of course, specialised plant care.

Salmond Reed Architects is overseeing conservation work, which is well underway at the Wintergardens, to keep it a valued community asset. In 2018 it was engaged to project manage an earlier review of the seismic issues the Wintergardens faced, provide glazing advice to bring the houses up to new compliance standards, and incorporate heritage fabric repairs into the project.

The completed first stage of the conservation project involved masonry, painting and paving repairs below five metres in height. The second stage is likely to start mid-year with seismic strengthening and a glazing upgrade – the feature of which will be the restoring of clear glass in the spectacular curved roofs to bring the buildings closer to their original appearance.

The work will be done in phases so that at least one glasshouse remains open to the public at all times.

“The project has been challenging and complex, but very rewarding,” says Tracey Hartley, Chartered Building Conservation Surveyor and Associate, Salmond Reed Architects.

“With stage one it was particularly rewarding to see the large timber windows restored and urgent leaks eradicated. Working with the helpful staff on site as they deal with thousands of visitors has been a pleasure.

“Identifying suitable glass and designing new glazing bars that are appropriate for a heritage building while still meeting the Building Code and the needs of the plants has been one of the most challenging aspects.”

The seismic strengthening work brings unique challenges to the glasshouses, as Martin van Jaarsveld explains.

“The replacement of the roofing joinery will create the major challenge of retaining heat in the tropical house to preserve some of the specimens growing directly in the ground, like the mango and cacao trees.” RETURN TO CONTENTS

WORDS: CHERIE JACOBSON

Woman's work

Wakefield’s St John’s Church is a rare example of a building designed by a woman in 19th-century New Zealand – and probably internationally

On a gentle rise overlooking Wakefield, a small town about half an hour’s drive south of Nelson, sits an unassuming little church with a remarkable story.

Built in 1846, St John’s is the first known piece of New Zealand architecture designed by a woman, and the oldest church in the South Island. For local resident Caroline Gibbs, it’s a second home. Not only was Caroline baptised, confirmed and married at St John’s, she has also been the organist for 55 years and is currently one of the church’s wardens.

“I’m part of the furniture!” she laughs. “I’m not the oldest parishioner, but I am the one who has been coming the longest.”

While Christ Church in Russell claims the title of oldest church in New Zealand, St John’s is believed to be the oldest parish church in continuous use. On Sunday mornings at 9am, a loyal congregation of about 20 gathers for a traditional communion service. At 10.30am a contemporary family service is held just down the road at the more modern Wakefield Worship Centre, built in 2002. The vicarage sits between the two buildings and has recently been renovated while the congregation waits for a new vicar.

The first service at St John’s on 11 October 1846 was led by the Revd Charles Lucas Reay, and it was his wife, Marianne Reay, who designed the simple but picturesque timber structure with gabled nave, chancel and bell tower. Local sawmiller Edward Baigent, one

LOCATION

Wakefield is situated 25km southwest of Nelson, at the top of the South Island.

of the first European settlers in the district, donated timber and oversaw the church’s construction.

When St John’s was first entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero as a Category 1 historic place in 1983, Marianne’s involvement wasn’t noted in the citation. The historian researching St John’s for its entry to the List had doubts as to the truth of this unusual story of a 19th-century reverend’s wife designing a church.

However, a short memoir written by Edward Baigent in 1891 and published a century later in a family history recalls the construction of St John’s and records that “Mrs Reay drew a design for the church which was approved”. A history of St John’s published for its 150th anniversary also points to Edward’s invoice for his work, which notes that the church was “designed by Mrs Reay”.

Little is known about English-born Marianne, who joined her husband in Nelson in 1843, where he was working as a missionary for the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Charles was transferred from Nelson to Waiapu by the CMS in 1847 and died there in 1848.

Marianne does not appear to have been popular within the CMS community and left New Zealand soon after her husband’s death. It seems certain that having a church built to her design was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for Marianne, but one that has seen her name inscribed in New Zealand’s architectural history and celebrated as part of a 1993 women’s suffrage centenary exhibition about women in architecture.

Caroline is rightfully proud of St John’s impressive history and is very knowledgeable about it herself. She is often called upon to give tours of the church for local and visiting groups and likes to point out some of St John’s special features, including the muddy cat paw prints that can be seen along the wooden boards used to construct the chancel’s ceiling. “We had a vicar once, during my lifetime, who wanted to clean them off. We said, ‘Absolutely not!’”

The kahikatea interior of the church seems to glow and one of Caroline’s favourite parts of St John’s is the Bullard Memorial Window. This beautiful stained-glass window, in the church’s eastern wall, was designed by Frederick Ellis and depicts St John. It was fabricated by leading stained glass artist Roy Miller in 1952, following a bequest by sisters Elizabeth and Sarah Bullard.

Many of the area’s early colonial families are buried on the hillside around the church, including members of the Baigent family and ancestors of Caroline’s husband. Given her lifelong association with St John’s, it’s unsurprising that Caroline feels such a strong connection to the church.

However, she’s not the only one to think it’s something special. “Everybody who comes here says they feel there’s a spirit in the place, there’s an atmosphere. I know it sounds fanciful, but there is. Everybody who visits from somewhere else says they can feel it – it’s just a happy place.”

Before the towering California redwoods and oak trees that surround St John’s reached their current heights, a lamp was kept lit inside the church to guide passing travellers at night. Today the church acts as a beacon of a different kind, a landmark with which the people of Wakefield identify and a symbol of Wakefield’s rich history as one of the earliest inland European settlements in New Zealand. RETURN TO CONTENTS

Dunedin heritage building owner Ted Daniels sees beauty where others might bulldoze

HIDDEN BEAUTY

WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE

In 1980, when Ted Daniels travelled halfway around the world from his native Netherlands with his wife Ita to live in New Zealand, it was a sense of familiarity that drew the couple to settle in Dunedin.

“We really liked Dunedin because it reminded us of a European city,” recalls the heritage building owner and restorer.

“Most cities in Europe have a city centre, which Dunedin has with the Octagon and main street, and with all its old buildings it also felt like home.”

But there were also some other, more disconcerting, similarities.

Before emigrating to New Zealand, Ted had been living in the heritage-rich Dutch city of Maastricht, developed over centuries from Roman times, where he had observed that a contemporary drive for modernity was leading to the destruction of many of its historic buildings.

“Then when I came to Dunedin in 1980 the same type of thing had been happening here, and there was all this talk about the need to modernise the city … people were pulling buildings down left, right and centre to make way for ugly buildings and car parks.

“I said, ‘I just came from a city where they’ve done that and they’re now regretting it’,” he says.

“It was right from those early days that I wanted to save heritage buildings because I could see they had so much value. At that time people said to me, ‘If you’re so passionate about them, you should buy them’ – but at that time I had no money.”

Trained as a gold- and silversmith in Schoonhoven, another heritage-rich city in the Netherlands, Ted is a jeweller by trade. And while he quickly established his own jewellery business in Dunedin in 1981 – which he has run ever since – it took him longer to take up the challenge to invest in heritage property.

“It was 20 years before I finally had the courage and some money to make my first purchase of a heritage building,” he says.

That first experience turned out to be a trial by fire, quite literally.

In 2000 a newspaper advertisement for the sale of a Victorian warehouse building called Bracken Court caught his eye but, just about to go on holiday to the Netherlands, he didn’t have time to pursue the opportunity. But when he returned home six weeks later to find it still on the market and the price reduced by $100,000, he snapped up the commercial property.

In 2005, however, while Ted was away in Canada, the building caught fire, sparking one of the city’s biggest blazes. The upper two of the building’s five storeys were destroyed by the fire, while the lower three were extensively water damaged.

“It looked like a shoebox, because there were just the walls standing with nothing inside,” Ted recalls.

“At that time people advised me to bulldoze it, but I said there was no way I would pull it down. Then they said, well, leave the façade and pull down the rest of it, but I said there’s no way, because the history is in the four walls of the building.

“If you only leave the façade, the building doesn’t mean anything anymore.”

An oversight meant he was severely underinsured, but with the aid of the insurance payout and bank finance he proceeded to rebuild. The process took two years, and a further two until the much-upgraded building was fully tenanted.

“If I say I’m going to do something, I will do it,” he explains of his perseverance through the adversity. “I’m not the kind of person who will walk away from a project when it becomes too difficult.” About a year after the completion of Bracken Court, Ted bought the Category 1 Bank of New Zealand Building on Princes Street in partnership with a friend, along with two adjacent heritage buildings: the Standard and Stanton Buildings.

When the partners decided to go their separate ways, Ted kept the latter two buildings, which have been the main focus of his heritage restoration efforts for the past decade – with at least another two years to go.

“The two buildings had major problems with water getting in and had been really badly damaged. Pigeons were living in there, so there was also about half a metre of pigeon poo. It was not very nice.”

His restoration of the Standard Building – which included reinstating its original 1874 façade, and uncovering a previously unknown bluestone wall from 1860 – garnered him the supreme award at the Dunedin Heritage Awards in 2017.

Dunedin-based Jonathan Howard, a Heritage New Zealand Project Advisor and former Area Manager Otago/Southland, says Ted’s projects are characterised by an incredible level of detail, executed to exacting standards, perhaps reflecting his practice as a jeweller.

And given that Ted undertakes a lot of the work himself, says Jonathan, he has an excellent understanding of the practical challenges that heritage projects can present, and generously shares his knowledge with others.

“He’s one of those people who are critical to Dunedin. It’s people like him who have shone a light on what’s achievable with heritage projects,” says Jonathan.

“And alongside a driven and concerted focus on his own projects, he still has his eyes on wider heritage issues in Dunedin. He cares about heritage outside his own orbit.”

Glen Hazelton, former Dunedin City Council Heritage Policy Planner and now Heritage New Zealand Director of Organisational Development, says Ted consistently raises the bar with his heritage projects.

“I’m constantly surprised by what he achieves,” he says. “His projects show incredible attention to detail, and he understands how those little things can make a

“He’s one of those people who are critical to Dunedin. It’s people like him who have shone a light on what’s achievable with heritage projects”

big difference; for example, in attracting great tenants that will create the right mix in an area.

“Often with heritage projects you’re trying to encourage people to think beyond their own immediate needs, but Ted has a longer-term understanding that our heritage should be preserved for future generations.”

For Ted, work on the larger Stanton Building, which sits behind the Standard, is ongoing; two major tenants (including Heritage New Zealand’s Otago/Southland Area Office) are now installed, while work continues on the basement and ground floor, and a rooftop apartment in which Ted and Ita will live.

While working through the required consent application process for the Stanton Building, Ted also bought an Art Deco property across the road. He has restored the façade and carried out earthquake strengthening as well as cosmetic work.

For now, he says, he intends the Stanton Building to be the last major heritage restoration he personally takes on, and his summary of the current status of that project gives further insight into what drives his wider passion for heritage preservation.

“At some time I will go forwards [with that project], but at the moment I’m still going backwards.

“But at the end of the day there is a beautiful building there that nobody knew existed; it had been hidden,” he says.

“I like the idea that nobody cared about the building, or knew about its actual size, and that most people would have just bulldozed it, whereas I saw potential – the opportunity to make something out of it.”

While I love lots of different buildings, I’m not drawn specifically to one building; it’s more a whole streetscape that I find intriguing. To me that’s what I love about Dunedin – the streetscapes, the combinations of its buildings.

You can look up through Moray Place, for example, and see Otago Boys’ High School, St Joseph’s Cathedral and the Priory next door (pictured below), and Otago Girls’ High School – it is beautiful. It almost looks like castles in the background, with this really European flavour.

That’s why if you destroy a building and put in a high-rise, it doesn’t just affect that site; it can destroy the whole streetscape, the whole view.

I say, in Dunedin, if you take the building away, you take history away that will never come back, because every building here has its own character and history. n RETURN TO CONTENTS