Benjamin Mountfort - Provincial Architect

Provincial Architect

As the "Provincial Architect"—a newly created position to which Mountfort was appointed in 1864—Mountfort designed a wooden church for the Roman Catholic community of the city of Christchurch. This wooden erection was subsequently enlarged several times until it was renamed a cathedral. It was eventually replaced in 1901 by the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, a more permanent stone building by the architect Frank Petre, though the cenotaph by Mountfort was preserved. Mountfort often worked in wood, a material he in no way regarded as an impediment to the Gothic style, though he was unique in this respect as Gothic buildings were often created from stone and mortar. Between 1869 and 1882 he designed the Canterbury Museum and subsequently Canterbury College and its clock tower in 1877.

Construction on the buildings for the Canterbury College, which later became the University of Canterbury, began with the construction of the clock tower block. This edifice, which opened in 1877, was the first purpose built university in New Zealand. The College was completed in two subsequent stages in Mountfort's usual Gothic style.

George Gilbert Scott, the architect of ChristChurch Cathedral, and an empathiser of Mountfort's teacher and mentor Carpenter, wished his former pupil Mountfort to be the clerk of works and supervising architect of the new cathedral project. This proposal was originally vetoed by the Cathedral Commission. Nevertheless, following delays in the building work attributed to financial problems, the position of supervising architect was finally given to Mountfort in 1873. Mountfort was responsible for several alterations to the absentee main architect's design, most obviously the tower and the west porch. He also designed the font, the Harper Memorial, and the north porch. The cathedral was however not finally completed until 1904, six years after Mountfort's death. The cathedral is very much in the European decorated Gothic style with an attached campanile tower beside the body of the cathedral, rather than towering directly above it in the more English tradition.

In 1872 Mountfort became a founding member of the Canterbury Association of Architects, a body which was responsible for all subsequent development of the new city. Mountfort was now at the pinnacle of his career. Mountfort notably altered the use of a segmented arch rather than one in the Romanesque style; the latter of which was considered by Augustus Pugin to be fundamentally important to the Gothic style. The college posed a challenge in its main hall; on the hall's completion in 1882, it was the largest public space in Christchurch. Additionally, a level of detail not possible in previous works was present in the hall's design due to the superior funding for the college. The completion of the first stage was met with praise and optimism, though extensions such as a biological lab were added in the early 1890s. By the 1880s, Mountfort was hailed as New Zealand's premier ecclesiastical architect, with over forty churches to his credit.

In 1888, he designed St John's Cathedral in Napier. This brick construction was demolished in the disastrous 1931 earthquake that destroyed much of Napier. Between 1886 and 1897, Mountfort worked on one of his largest churches, the wooden St Mary's, the cathedral church of Auckland. Covering 9,000 square feet (840 m2), St Mary's is the largest and last timber church built by Mountfort, and the largest wooden Gothic church in the world. At its completion, it was said that "in point of design, completeness and beauty reaches a high level mark not yet approached in the diocese". The emphasis placed on the sweeping roof by the great aisle windows struck a balance to the great area the church enclosed. In 1982 the entire church, complete with its stained glass windows, was transported to a new site, across the road from its former position where a new cathedral was to be built. St Mary's church was consecrated in 1898, one of Mountfort's final grand works.

Outside of his career, Mountfort was keenly interested in the arts and a talented artist, although his artistic work appears to have been confined to art pertaining to architecture, his first love. He was a devout member of the Church of England and a member of many Anglican church councils and diocese committees.

Mountfort's later years were blighted by professional jealousies, as his position as the province's first architect was assailed by new and younger men influenced by new orders of architecture. Benjamin Mountfort died in 1898, aged 73. He was buried in the cemetery of Holy Trinity Avonside, the church which he had extended in 1876.