William Mason (architect) - Early Career in Dunedin

Early Career in Dunedin

In the south the capital of the Presbyterian special settlement was mushrooming into a frontier city. Mason formed a partnership with David Ross (1827–1908) a Scottish–born Fellow of the Institute of British Architects who was already resident. There now followed numerous projects and a series of changing partnerships. The one with Ross was dissolved early in 1863. Of numerous small commissions the Dunedin Public Warehouse, for William Dalrymple, now 386 Princes Street, is a more substantial example. A three story building in brick it has a vigorously modelled street front with emphatic quoining used to define the edges and apertures of the facade. Those around the windows rise to form round–topped columns. There are echoes here of the fenestration of the second Government House but the relative simplicity and strength of the Dunedin building shows the designer his own master again and possessed of a corresponding new confidence.

Mason also designed a number of houses at this time but his Bank of New Zealand, also on Princes Street, attracted particular attention. Described as of a "general Grecian Style" it was a stone built two story structure on the site of William Armson's later, magnificent replacement. Again there were parallels with the second Government House but the bank, like the warehouse, and like the bank's counterpart in Wellington, also designed by Mason at this time, has been characterised as exhibiting an admirable "brawny simplicity" reminiscent of Robert Adam. Adjacent to the bank was a three story office for T.B. Gillies which now saw Mason flourishing forth with a contrastingly exuberant and delicate Venetian design. It had paired, arcaded windows on the upper floors and sculpted heads over the columns. Sadly this building doesn't survive. Another substantial commission for the Bank of Australasia in High Street was a further contrast, a more obviously Victorian building whose elaborate ironwork reflected the connection between Dunedin and Melbourne at the time. It has been said it has been largely demolished but while remodelled still mostly survives, or did until its demolition in 2009 . Mason had a number of staff at this busy time, including his clerk of works, N.Y.A. Wales. By the end of 1863 he had bought land in London Street and there built a house for himself. Two–storey and Italianate it was another timber building treated to resemble stone, like the second Government House, but a tall structure, with some good interior plaster work. It too survives at 104 London Street and is best known for the adjoining Globe Theatre, Dunedin. In early 1864 Mason entered into a partnership with William Clayton (1823–77).

He now received more substantial commissions, two of them the greatest undertakings attempted in New Zealand up till then: the building for the New Zealand Exhibition and a new Post Office for the Otago provincial government. The first was completed in 1865 the second in 1868. The exhibition building had been conceived with additional pavilions, evident in a water colour by the artist George O'Brien. O'Brien also depicted the new Post Office, a structure so grand that before its completion it was decided it needed a higher purpose.

The exhibition building was a twin–towered palazzo in stuccoed brick, with corner turrets and the bold quoining already exhibited in the Dunedin Public Warehouse. It had a central, covered courtyard and was a descendant of Charles Fowler's design for the Covent Garden market building in London. It was situated on Great King Street and afterward became the city's hospital, serving the purpose until its demolition in 1933.

The Post Office, better known as the Stock Exchange (Dunedin Stock Exchange building), was Mason's greatest achievement. It was described at the time as the finest building in the colony and was a notable aesthetic success. A two story stone building it was tendered at 22,960 pounds, occupied most of a city block and was another palazzo, arcaded and with a 120-foot high clock tower above the central entrance. It was symmetrical in plan and overall design and was described as "Palladian with Italian and Grecian features". There was a central hall with a highly decorated interior. Its street elevations appeared effortlessly noble. Recessed columns in the arcades, elaborate stone carving in the spandrels and the rhythmic alternation of deep arches and heavily rusticated pilasters contributed to the effect, as did the recession of the first floor from the ground floor's arcade. As a consequence the first floor was set like a temple atop a mighty, balustraded plinth to which the first floor's lofty pediments added a crowning, glorious note. The cosmopolitan assurance of the design was almost startling in the context. But the building's outstanding success seems to have contributed to its demise. Transferred to the university, for which purpose it wasn't suited, it became the premises of the Colonial Bank, and then the Stock Exchange suffering unfortunate modifications along the way. It was a mess of ill–considered additions when it was demolished in 1969.

At this time Mason and Clayton had also completed the large bond store later known as Edinburgh House and the Otago Provincial Council building on blocks immediately adjacent to the Post Office. Those too are now gone but All Saints church in North Dunedin survives. There has been some ambivalence about the relative responsibility of Mason and Clayton for this commission, but most commentators treat it as a joint production. Certainly Mason eventually completed it alone. An unusual building in polychromatic brick it reflects the innovations of William Butterfield in England. With its departure from a scholarly adherence to the Early Pointed manner of the Gothic style it also marks the onset of High Victorianism in New Zealand. This first portion of the building was finished in 1865.

At this time Mason was still a member of the house of representatives and in this year became the first Mayor of the newly incorporated City of Dunedin. He retired from parliament in 1866 and from the mayoralty in 1867. He was a cognisant, though not outspoken, member of the house. In the civic chair he presided over improvements to the city's drains and the levelling of streets. His Bank of New South Wales in Princes Street was completed in 1866, a refined, three storey masonry building. Recessed from the street and ornamented with gas lamps and pillars, it won high praise and a careful description from the Otago Daily Times. Its felicitous street front was removed in the 1970s.