7 minute read
Dunedin
CITY TALES
WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON
Having already scaled the winding staircase that led to the choir loft high in one of the towers of Dunedin’s Category 1-listed St Joseph’s Cathedral, David Murray made a call to push higher still.
His search of the loft for a mass composed by Raffaello Squarise – the Italian musician and composer who lived in Dunedin from 1889 until his retirement in the 1930s, and who was the subject of David’s PhD research – had come up empty-handed.
So, undeterred, David headed up a ladder and through a trap door to where the cathedral’s choirmaster had signalled more music could possibly be found.
Squarise had begun writing the mass during a stint as choirmaster at the cathedral in the 1890s. He’d completed the mass when he returned to work at the church some 20 years later as a conductor; however, at the time of David’s search in the higher reaches of the cathedral, no one had performed the work for the best part of a century.
“On the way up, I nearly rang the bells by mistake. But substantial holdings of major built heritage significance.
These include the records of Dalziel Architects, for example, and those of Salmond Anderson Architects, with the latter recognised by UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand as items of recorded heritage that have national significance.
“With archives, preservation is one part of the job,” explains David, “but access is the other big side of it. You’re wanting to push all of that archival information out there so people can actually find it and use it, because it’s no use if it’s just hidden away.”
While he’s become the Hocken’s ‘go-to guy’ for answers to building-related questions, he’s also extended that reach through sharing stories online of the city’s built heritage.
In 2011 he co-founded the Upright! Exploring Dunedin’s Built Heritage Facebook page with Kari Wilson-Allan, and the following year he started the Built in Dunedin blog, in which each post takes a dive into the
then, at the top of the tower, underneath all the pigeon dung, was the original handwritten score for the mass,” recalls David. “It was amazing.”
It’s a tale in which research, fascinating characters and an historic place intersect – a nexus that more generally characterises David’s work, and which was recently honoured by Dunedin’s heritage community.
Late last year the Hocken Collections archivist received the Bluestone Award from the Southern Heritage Trust during the Ōtepoti Dunedin Heritage Festival, in recognition of his advocacy work to promote and protect the city’s built heritage.
The Hocken Collections are diverse and extensive, particularly relating to the Otago region; they span everything from the literary and personal papers of Janet Frame to records from firms such as the Union Steam Ship Company and recorded music relating to the ‘Dunedin sound’.
David has worked in the Hocken’s archive section since 2005, at times dealing with history and stories related to a heritage building.
“The blog evolved from wanting to share these stories in a more long-form way. I thought I’d just dribble a few posts out and see if it got going; it now has about 600 email subscribers and has averaged 40,000 to 60,000 page views a year, every year since 2013.”
With his mother being a piano teacher, David grew up with music. Prior to undertaking his PhD on Squarise, he completed a music performance degree at the University of Otago, and since 1998 has played in the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, primarily as principal or co-principal cellist.
Built heritage has also been a passion from an early age – in part inspired by this publication.
“As a child I’d visit my aunt in Wellington; she still lives in this beautiful, early-’70s Erwin Winkler-designed house, and in the spare room there was always a pile of mid-1980s copies of Heritage New Zealand magazine. I still remember particular covers,” he recalls.
Mining a seam in which archival materials, fascinating characters and heritage buildings merge provides rich material for the stories Dr David Murray shares in his blog, Built in Dunedin
David recalls, as a young child growing up in Kirwee, Canterbury, outings with a friend’s family to places such as the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Christchurch; as a teenager in Nelson his sixth-form statistics project involved dating the façades of the buildings on the city’s main street.
David was born in Dunedin, and when he returned to live in the city to attend the University of Otago, he immediately immersed himself in the city’s built heritage.
“One of the first things I do when I go to a new place is learn about its buildings.
“Amongst other writings, I recall reading Lois Galer’s wonderful series of books on the houses and homes of Dunedin, which have this mix of architectural and social history. It’s the merging of those two things that I really enjoy.”
While he admits there are many areas of history, such as music, he could have explored through his blog, it’s the deep well of stories related to built heritage that steered its direction.
“With built heritage history you can draw on a really wide range of subject matter. Sometimes it can be bottom up – learning about workers in a factory – and other times top down – exploring a grand home and its wealthy owner.
“And along the way you can delve into other areas, like popular culture.”
David acknowledges the many sources he’s drawn on while creating the blog, such as Papers Past and other National Library of New Zealand resources, Dunedin City Council’s archives, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum and, of course, the Hocken Collections.
Readers love the imagery that runs alongside the posts, he notes, and particularly the more quirky and surprising stories relating to places – “the stories where you think, ‘Gosh, I’d never think that would have happened at that time and place’.”
Balancing work, a young family, music and his other passions (including being a trustee of the Historic Cemeteries Conservation Trust of New Zealand) can be difficult, and David admits that these days he can’t spend as much time on the blog. But he currently has a couple of posts up his sleeve and continues to be motivated by a desire to help protect the city’s architectural treasures.
“People in Dunedin really do value the city’s built heritage, but there’s always a risk of the incremental destruction of some really quality buildings. For example, there’s very little suburban or Modernist heritage recognised on the district plan,” he notes.
“The value of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so if you end up with just a few isolated heritage showpieces – the grand ones you see on the postcards – the city would certainly lose a lot of the character that people cherish.”
builtindunedin.com
First Church of Otago, Dunedin
heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/60
The buildings I’m drawn to are the ones that are artistically appealing, home to some amazing stories, and with which I also feel a personal connection.
For those reasons – and while it might seem a fairly obvious choice – First Church is a favourite building for me.
It’s an incredible building – a world-class piece of architecture that we’re lucky to have in Dunedin – but also my grandparents were married there in 1920, and later my aunt, so there’s a family connection too.
I’ve probably had more to do with Knox Church. A lot of music happens at Knox Church, so I’ve often played there, and to be honest its interior is better than First Church’s.
They’re both Lawson churches [designed by architect Robert Lawson], but Knox is later, and Lawson obviously learned a lot in the intervening years about the functioning of that sort of building – particularly the embracing gallery, which makes for a more intimate overall space.
So maybe my favourite building is Knox Church on the inside and First Church, with that incredible Gothic spire, on the outside. n
