Ecclesiastical designs Petre’s hallmark
The book
FRANCIS William Petre (18471918) was a preeminent early contributor to New Zealand’s architectural scene. He completed more than seventy religious, residential and commercial commissions between 1875 and 1910, but is most loved and bestremembered for his ecclesiastical designs — including many in Dunedin and Otago.
Petre was an engineer before he became an architect, a fact that shines through in his finished work. Articled at age 16, in 1864, to London engineer Joseph Samuda — whose main business was shipbuilding for the Royal Navy — Petre qualified as an engineer and architect around 1869. This was when he gained his experience — and interest — in the newfangled construction material known as concrete.
Petre was in the right place at the right time to make the most of the innovation. He returned to New Zealand as a railway engineer in 1872, settling in Dunedin to oversee construction of the BlenheimPicton and DunedinBalclutha lines (completed 1875). John Brogden, his employer, was contracted to deliver 256 kilometres of track for Vogel’s public works initiative.
Dunedin was a Presbyterian settlement, but the arrival of goldhungry Irish saw Catholics increase from 2% to 13% of the population between 1858 and 1864. The Otago gold rush also brought wealth. Catholics were keen to assert their presence, and by 1895 the Diocese boasted 43 churches and a cathedral.
Petre had married Margaret Cargill in 1881. The newlyweds’ residence, Springfield, at 20 Cliffs Road St Clair, and nearby Pinner House at 15 Cliffs Road were both designed in the English Cottage style. Petre had first used the style for John Lewis’ mansion Lanmaes, now Dux de Lux, in Christchurch in 1883.
For church designs, Petre and his Catholic and Protestant peers originally favoured the Gothic revival style as most ‘spiritually uplifting’. Among Petre’s earliest works, both the 1875 crowstep gabled Woodside (aka Castlamore), built with an innovative, fairfaced concrete facade for Judge Henry Chapman near Dunedin’s Botanic Garden, and St
Dominic’s Priory of 1877 (then the largest Southern Hemisphere building to incorporate unreinforced poured concrete walls) drew heavily on Gothic revival motifs.
But Gothic revival was prohibitively expensive for colonial purses. Petre’s largest work in the style, Dunedin’s St Joseph’s Cathedral on a difficult site adjacent to St Dominic’s Priory, was to deliver the young architect a salutary lesson in construction economics. Work on St Joseph’s, which was envisaged as the most impressive cathedral in Australasia, began in 1878 but the church eventually opened unfinished in 1886.
Ever the pragmatic engineer, Petre took the lessons of St Joseph’s to heart. His subsequent church designs would all be riffs on the basilica. Petre increasingly favoured concrete for its affordability, technical effectiveness, and stately, stonelike finish. He would become the leading New Zealand architectural practitioner in concrete of his generation.
In ancient Rome, basilicas were halls of justice. They were later adopted by Christians as places of worship. From the late 1800s, basilicas featured columns, coffered ceilings, clerestories, side aisles, and apses. Domes were optional.
Petre’s switch to basilicabased designs was undoubtedly influenced by his time at Monsignor Haffreingue’s school at BoulognesurMer in northern France. The Basilica of NotreDame de Boulogne, adjacent to Petre’s old school, was constructed between 1827 and 1875 and was designed by the schoolmaster himself, although he wasn’t a trained architect. Haffreingue’s design prefigures many features Petre later chose for his own work.
Petre’s first attempt at a basilica was for St Patrick’s in South Dunedin, which opened in October 1894. The more flamboyant St Patrick’s of Oamaru was consecrated the following month. The South Dunedin basilica is modest in design, with the ceiling of pressed zinc — instead of plaster — a typical Petre costand weightsaving innovation.
Even for nonChristians, Petre’s designs are distinctive, beautiful and empowering. Unusually, he experimented with structural materials, styles and forms throughout his career, including for his final commissions. His Church of the Sacred Heart in Timaru (completed 1910) and St Mary’s Roman Catholic Basilica in Invercargill (completed 1905) are each as original as Petre’s earliest designs for his clients of the 1870s. Petre was also unusual among his professional peers for keeping a careful eye on construction pragmatics.
Petre was notably aware of the importance of natural light and aural qualities within internal spaces, and many have commented on the internal radiance and acoustic beauty of Petre’s domestic and ecclesiastical designs. St Patrick’s in Oamaru is particularly noted for its acoustic resonance and luminous interior glow, Woodside/Castlamore is said to be infused with daylight, and Petre’s own residence at St Clair was (unusually for the time) designed to face the sun instead of the street.
An extract from
Take Me With You Too!: A SelfDrive Guide to Dunedin’s Engineering Heritage