Robert Lawson (architect)

NZ architect

Robert Arthur Lawson (1 January 1833 – 3 December 1902) was one of New Zealand's pre eminent 19th century architects. It has been said he did more than any other designer to shape the face of the Victorian era architecture of the city of Dunedin. He is the architect of over forty churches, including Dunedin's First Church for which he is best remembered, but also other buildings, such as Larnach Castle, a country house, with which he is also associated. Born at Newburgh, in Fife, Scotland, he emigrated in 1854 to Australia and then in 1862 to New Zealand. He died aged 69 in Canterbury, New Zealand. Lawson is acclaimed for his work in both the Gothic revival and classical styles of architecture. He was prolific, and while isolated buildings remain in Scotland and Australia, it is in the Dunedin area that most surviving examples can now be found. Today he is held in high esteem in his adopted country. However, at the time of his death his reputation was at a low ebb following the partial collapse of his Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, at the time New Zealand's largest building. In 1900, shortly before his death, he returned to New Zealand from a self imposed, ten year exile to re establish his name, but his sudden demise prevented a full rehabilitation of his reputation. The great plaudits denied him in his lifetime were not to come until nearly a century after his death, when the glories of Victorian architecture began again to be recognised and appreciated.

Lawson was born on 1 January 1833 at 49 Hoggs Place, Abbyhill in the village of Grange of Lindores in the parish of Abdie near Newburgh, Fife, Scotland. He was the fourth child of Margaret (nee Arthur) and James Lawson, a carpenter and sawmiller. Like other new arrivals in Australia, he tried many new occupations over the next two years on various goldfields tried goldmining before eventually settling in the town of Steiglitz where as well as remaining involved in gold mining activities he became the agent for the Melbourne newspaper The Argus and for whom it is believed he also acted as its local correspondent. This was despite him suffering from ill health which required him to spend two months in Melbourne in 1873 and later in 1874. As he had no partners to share the workload his practice employed a number of young architects, including Thomas Forrester, Percy W. Laing and James Louis Salmond (from 1888) who later went on to establish their own practices. In the winters there was visible hardship and distress and people began to leave in particular to Australia, where Melbourne experienced a boom in the 1880s. Dunedin began to stagnate which caused Lawson's commissions to change from commercial and industrial clients to predominantly residential.

In 1875 the Otago Provincial Council decided to replace the existing Dunedin Lunatic Asylum on the site of what later became the Otago Boys High School with a new one on an existing government reserve at Seacliff 25 km from Dunedin. Once the council was abolished in 1876 responsibility for the complex passed to the Public Works Department, who had a policy that for any building of magnitude a private architect should be employed. Accordingly with regard to Seacliff, William Blair who was Engineer in Charge of the Middle Island (South Island) entered into communication with the Minister for Public Works who authorised him to communicate with Lawson. Blair had been chairman of the building committee for the Knox Church and had been influential in obtaining for Lawson the design of both that building and the later Otago Boys High School. After a meeting between Blair and Lawson, the architect was formally requested by letter to undertake the work, Lawson replied on 17 July 1878 accepting the commission. Lawson's only previous experience with designing such a building had been that of the Dunedin Benevolent Institution in the 1860s. Lawson decided to design the building in the Scottish Baronial style. Designed to house 500 patients and 50 staff the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum was upon its completion New Zealand's largest building for the next 50 years. Architecturally, this was Lawson at his most exuberant, extravagant and adventurous: Otago Boys High School seems almost severe and restrained in comparison. Turrets on corbels project from nearly every corner; the gabled roof line is dominated by a mammoth tower complete with further turrets and a spire. The edifice broadly E shaped ground plan was 740 feet (226 m) long by 228 feet (69 m) wide. As well as designing the permanent building Lawson also designed a temporary wooden building to accommodate sixty male patients and staff above the site for the new permanent building. Construction commenced on site in September 1879 and soon became apparent that parts of the site were unstable, first at the site of temporary building, before structural problems within the permanent building began to manifest themselves even before completion in July 1884 at a cost of £78,000. The building continued to deteriorate with the tower demolished in 1945 and the remaining structure in 1957. In 1888 an enquiry into the collapse was set up. In February, realising that he may be in legal trouble, Lawson applied to the enquiry to be allowed counsel to defend him. During the enquiry all involved in the construction – including the contractor, the head of the Public Works Department, the project's clerk of works and Lawson himself – were forced to give evidence to support their competence. The Commissioners apportioned blame to Lawson for constructional defects and not insisting on proper drainage works being carried out, but also placed blame on the Public Works Department for not paying attention to repeated applications from the architect to deal with drainage problems and warnings from Dr James Hector, the Director of Geological Survey. As both he and his wife were members of the congregation and Lawson an elder of the Presbytery of Otago and Southland these failings of his most prestigious commission must have felt highly embarrassing. When combined with the issues at Seacliff and the economic downturn they were sufficient to cause him to quickly wind up his affairs and depart for Melbourne on 8 May 1890. and the foundation stone was laid on 16 August 1890, so there was enough time to be appointed and design the mansion. The principal aspect of the design, the tall Corinthian portico, is practically an exact match to those on Lawson's banks in Oamaru, the pediment of the National Bank in particular is essentially repeated here. Often said to resemble a Grecian temple, the architecture of a bold double height Corinthian columned portico is derived from the Greek Revival; the wrapping around the house on three sides, and incorporating a verandah, is also reminiscent of the plantation houses of the American Deep South The cost of construction to the owner Collier McCracken was £35,000; it later sold in 1911 for just £6000. Commercial buildings which survive from Lawson's Melbourne years include the Moran and Cato warehouse in Fitzroy and the College Church in Parkville, which were completed in 1897. In 1900, at the age of 67, Lawson came out of his ten year long self imposed exile from New Zealand and returned to Dunedin. Here he entered into practice with his former pupil J. Louis Salmond. A number of commercial and residential buildings were erected under their joint names, including the brick house known as "Threave" built for Watson Shennan at 367 High Street. This is one of Lawson's last works. Threave has particularly ornate carved verandahs in the Gothic style, but is today better known for its gardens than architecture. The house and gardens were extensively restored in the 1960s and 1970s by then owner Geoff Baylis. The Lawson–Salmond partnership would not last long. In 1902 Lawson died suddenly at Pleasant Point, Canterbury, on 3 December. By the time of his death he had begun to re establish his reputation, having been elected vice president of the Otago Institute of Architects. Although much of Lawson's early work has since been either demolished or heavily altered, surviving plans and photographs from the period suggest that the buildings he was working on at this time included a variety of styles. Indeed, Lawson designed principally in both the classical and Gothic styles simultaneously throughout his career. His style and manner of architecture can best be explained through an examination of six of his designs, three Gothic and three in the classical style, and each an individual interpretation and use of their common designated style.

The British Protestant religions were at this period still heavily influenced by the Anglo Catholic Oxford Movement, which had decreed Gothic as the only architectural style suited for Christian worship; Greek, Roman, and Italian renaissance architecture was viewed as "pagan" and inappropriate in the design of churches. The lack of ritual and religious processions rendered unnecessary a large chancel; hence in Lawson's version of the Gothic, the chancel and transepts (the areas which traditionally in Roman and Anglo Catholic churches contained the Lady Chapel and other minor chapels) are merely hinted at in the design. There is a tradition that Larnach designed his house after Castle Forbes, his father's house at Baroona in Australia. The plans, however, are unquestionably from Lawson's office. The origin of the myth is simply that Larnach Castle has verandahs, doubtless insisted on by Larnach, an obviously colonial addition to its otherwise conventional revivalist design. However these do lend it distinction. Although some have questioned if Larnach Castle was an essay in the revived Scottish baronial manner. The main facade resembles a small, castellated tower house, with the characteristic rubble masonry, turrets and battlements, present at Abbotsford, an exemplar of the style. It has been accurately described as a "castellated villa wrapped in a two storey verandah". The principal facade is dominated by a central tower complete with a stair turret which gives the house its castle like appearance. The interior of the building is ornate, with imported marbles and Venetian glass used in the Italianate decoration. As with First Church, there are also numerous carvings by Louis Godfrey. It took 200 men three years to complete the shell and a further twelve years for the interior to be finished. In 1887 the building was further extended by the addition of a ballroom. In 1880, following the death of his first wife, Larnach had Lawson design in Dunedin's Northern Cemetery a miniaturised version of First Church as a family mausoleum. Larnach was interred in the mausoleum himself. While serving as New Zealand's Minister of Finance and of Mines in 1898, he committed suicide in a committee room of the parliamentary building in Wellington, not because of the financial stresses of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand, as previously thought but because of circulating rumours about an affair between his eldest son and his third wife.

Otago Boys' High School, Arthur Street, Dunedin, was completed in 1885. Often referred to as Gothic, in fact it is a hybrid of several orders of architecture with obvious renaissance/Tudor style, and Gothic influences: the nearest style into which it can be categorised is probably Jacobethan (a peculiarly English form of the Neo Renaissance). The building has long been regarded as one of the finest examples of architecture in Dunedin, built of stone with many window embrasures and corners of lighter quoins. The school's many turrets and towers led to the architect Nathaniel Wales describing it in 1890 as "a semi ecclesiastical building" in the "Domestic Tudor style of medieval architecture". The building, though castle like, is not truly castellated although some of the windows are surmounted by crenelated ornament. Its highest point, the dominating tower, is decorated by stone balustrading. The tower has turrets at each corner – an overall composition more redolent of the early 17th century English Renaissance than an earlier true castle. While the school's entrance arch was obviously designed to impart an ecclesiastical or collegiate air, the school has the overall appearance of a prosperous Victorian country house.

Lawson's classical works tended to be confined to public and corporate buildings. It appears that the Gothic style favoured by the Protestants for their churches was also their preferred choice for their houses. Much of Lawson's classical work is in the town of Oamaru, north of Dunedin. Here, as in Dunedin itself, Lawson built in the local Oamaru stone, a hard limestone that is ideal for building purposes, especially where ornate moulding is required. The finished stonework has a creamy, sandy colour. Unfortunately, it is not strongly resistant to today's pollution, and can be prone to surface crumbling.

This building, completed in 1871, is one of Lawson's successful exercises into classical architecture, designed in a near Palladian style. A perfectly proportioned portico prostyle, its pediment supported by four Corinthian columns, projects from a square building of five bays, the three central bays being behind the portico. The temple like portico gives the impression of entering a pantheon rather than a bank. The proportions of the main facade of this building display a Palladian symmetry, almost worthy of Palladio himself; however, unlike a true Palladian design, the two floors of the bank are of equal value, only differentiated by the windows of the ground floor being round topped, while those above are the same size but have flat tops. Of all Lawson's classical designs, the National Bank is perhaps the most conventional in terms of adherence to classical rules of architecture as defined in Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. As his career progressed he became more adventurous in his classical designs, not always with the harmony and success he achieved at the National Bank. While working on the elegantly simple National Bank, Lawson was also simultaneously employed on the architecturally vastly different Larnach Castle, which suggests that unlike the many notable architects who graduate through their careers from one style to another, Lawson could produce whatever his client required at any stage in his career.

Built in 1883, located right next to his earlier National Bank, this is also Neoclassical in design, its limestone facade dominated by a great six columned, unpedimented portico. The columns in the Corinthian order support a divided entablature; the lower section or architrave bears the inscription "Bank of New South Wales", while above the frieze remains undecorated. The building, while not jarring, has less architectural merit than the National Bank building, even though it was originally intended to be more classical and impressive than its neighbour. The imposing effect the architect sought is lessened at ground level where the portico's columns are linked by a balustrade. This extinguishes the clean lined effect one would expect in a classical building of this stature and order and reduces the building's appearance to that of a doll's house. This effect is exacerbated by the windows within the portico (flat topped on the lower floor and round topped on the upper floor); these are disproportionately large and destroy the "temple" effect which the great portico was intended to create. Today, this externally unaltered building is used as an art gallery.

This Oamaru Hotel is one of Lawson's more adventurous forays into classical architecture. Forsaking Palladian influenced temple like columns and porticos, he initially took as his inspiration the mannerist palazzi, which were a reaction to the more ornate high renaissance style of architecture popular in early 16th century Italy. There are even some minor similarities between this building and the Palazzo del Te. Just as at street level the palazzi often have a ground floor of rusticated stone, so did this hotel. Massive blocks of ashlar were used to create an impression of strength, supporting the more delicately designed floor above; this feeling of strength was further enhanced by double pilasters serving merely to imply a need to support the great weight above. Above this solid and severe facade that Lawson chose instead of the customary two or three floors, the massive blocks of stone support just one floor. This upper floor is not an obvious piano nobile, but appears, though of more delicate and simple design, to be of equal value to the floor below. The rusticated pilasters of the lower floor are continued above, but become smooth dressed stone to match the upper facade. The pilasters' capitals are Corinthian, and as at the Bank of New South Wales they support an undecorated entablature. The centre and focal point of the building is marked by a pediment, which again gives the air of a palazzo. However, what Lawson created was not a mannerist or indeed Palladian town palazzo at all but a hybrid, while similar, at first glance, to the neo palladian villas and country houses of the late 18th century found in Italy and England, examples being Villa di Poggio Imperiale and Woburn Abbey. The Star and Garter, though, through Lawson's "pick, mix and match" approach to different forms of classical architecture is in its own way quite unique. Since the Star and Garter's completion, many of its windows have either been blocked or enlarged, changes that have been detrimental to the architectural effect Lawson created. The building is now used mainly by a theatre company, although a restaurant at the eastern end of the building retains the hotel's original name.

Robert Lawson was chiefly an architect of his time, designing in the styles then popular. The British emigrants to the colonies wanted architecture to remind them of home, and thus it is not surprising that Lawson's most notable buildings are all in a form of Gothic. Many, such as Larnach Castle and Seacliff Asylum, have been described as Scottish baronial; however, this is not an accurate description, although that particular form of Gothic may have been at times his inspiration. Lawson's particular skill was mixing various forms of similar architecture to create a building that was in its own way unique, rather than a mere pastiche of an earlier style; having achieved this, he then went on to adapt his architecture to accommodate the climate and materials locally available. Local stone and wood were particular favourites of his, especially the good quality limestone of Oamaru, and these were often used in preference to the excellent bricks equally available. Small Gothic Lancet windows were often avoided and replaced by large bay windows, allowing the rooms to be flooded with light rather than creating the darker interiors of true Gothic buildings. Larnach Castle has often been criticised as being clumsy and incongruous, but this derives from the persistent misinterpretation of Lawson's work as Scottish baronial. It is true that in a Scottish glen, much of his work would be incongruous, but Lawson realised that he was designing not for the glens and mountains of his homeland, but rather for a new country, with new ideals and vast vistas. Thus, set upon its two storeyed verandahs, and looking out over the Otago Peninsula and Otago Harbour from above sea level, the mansion seems perfectly positioned. At the time of Lawson's work the rival schools of Classical and Gothic architecture were both equally fashionable. In his ecclesiastical commissions, Lawson worked exclusively for the Protestant denominations and thus never received the opportunity to build a great church in the classical style. His major works therefore have to be appraised through his use of the Gothic. First Church thus has to be regarded as his masterpiece. His classical works, though often competently and skillfully executed, were mostly confined to smaller public buildings. He never had the opportunity to refine and hone his classical ideas, and therefore these never had the opportunity to make the same impact as his Gothic works. Much of Lawson's work is either demolished or much altered. Two of his timber Gothic churches survive at Kakanui (1870) and East Gore (1881). The designs still standing (which include all of the works described in detail above) have ensured that Lawson's reputation has fully recovered from the condemnation he received following the Seacliff enquiry. Today, Lawson is lauded as the architect of some of New Zealand's finest historic buildings. The Otago Branch of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust has inaugurated a memorial lecture programme, the RA Lawson Lecture, which is presented in Dunedin annually by an eminent local or overseas speaker. NZHPT Otago Branch Archives, Dunedin.