Return To Architecture
In 1857 he returned to architecture and entered into a business partnership with his sister Susannah's new husband, Isaac Luck. Mountfort's career received a fillip when he was commissioned to design the St John's Anglican church at Waikouaiti in Otago. A small timber structure in the Gothic style, it was completed on December the 19th 1858 on land donated by the ex-whaler Johnny Jones. It is still in use as a church, the oldest such structure in southern New Zealand. Now within the boundaries of the city of Dunedin its simple pit-sawn timber interior successfully conjures a sense of spirituality.
Christchurch was under heavy development at this time, as it had just been granted city status and was the new administrative capital of the province of Canterbury. This provided Mountfort and Luck ample opportunity to practice their trade. In 1855 they produced a preliminary design for the new Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings in timber. The buildings were constructed from 1857–59, but in a more limited form than the original design. As the Provincial Council gained new functions with growth in the population and economy of the province, the buildings were enlarged with a North wing in stone and an iron clock tower from 1859–60, and further enlarged with a stone council chamber and refreshment rooms in 1864–65. The buildings today are regarded as one of Mountfort's most important works.
From the exterior, the building appears austere, as was much of Mountfort's early work: a central tower dominates two flanking gabled wings in the Gothic revival style. However the interior was a riot of colour and medievalism as perceived through Victorian eyes; it included stained glass windows, and a large double-faced clock, thought to be one of only five around the globe. The chamber is decorated in a rich, almost Ruskinesque style, with carvings by a local sculptor William Brassington. Included in the carvings are representations of indigenous New Zealand species.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Mountfort
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or architecture:
“And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)