and the Gothic Revival in Canterbury: A Centermial Exhibition 17 ptember - 22 ovemb 998 Ro It cOo 11 Art Gall ehri c ur h, Ze I d ; ::.1,+---------~_______I On 15 March] 998, the centenary of Mountfort alh a pI que was unveiled in the Great Hall at th Art Centre. It reads: Benjamin oolfi Id ountfort 1825-1898 uth hit c of Canterbll.lY e II, 1853) ountforf impa t on Canterbury ha endured - lit rally and m taphorically - more resolutely than the Ie a of any other colonial personality. Tb architectural character of Chri tchurch' key ninet emh c ntury buildings i unique in this country an tho building that were not de ign d by ountfort till acknowledge hi influenc a devo ed and remarkably talented di ciple of th Golhi R vival. Hi building are the pre-eminent I m nt ofVictorian Christchurch and have continu to influence local architect until th rec nt p t. B. W. Mou.ntfon. Photo: Canterbury MWiewn Our Gallery's tribute to the centennial celebr tiOI acknowledges not only his I would lik to thank colleagues at th contribution to th rchit ctural heritage of this Auckland Art Gall ry for allowing us to borrow city but more broadly, hi contribution nationally Nor'w ler in tit cemetery by our Cantabrian icon. - he is arguably N w Z aland's most significant William A Sutton. I-lis work is one of the few colonial archit t. d piction of Mountfort's long-demolished Our gu st cur tOf, Dr Ian Lochhead, Senior fun 'ary cl1 p LH ppily, its stained glass windows Lectur r in Art Hi tory t the University of ar now af ly in our own collection and will b Canterbury, h uppli d an overview of display d longside this famous 1950 oil on canva Mountforl's c r r through his building plans and for the duration of the exhibition. many de ign for int rior detailings, several of th [ h v m de specific mention of th realis d decorativ items themselves, a selection Auckland Art Gall ry, but many other supportiv of fa cmating rchival photographs and books organi ation and individuals have loaned de igns from Mountfort' own rof ional library. The drawing book photograph and decorative exhibition al indud de ign executed prior to item. Without uch genera ity in lending work. his arrival in w Ze I nd, and the e place him exhibition remain merely a concept, and rarely in cont xt with hi Briti h contemporarie . becom r ality. Equally importantly, I thank Th Additionally, r Lochhead' admiration for Community Tru t, whose generous funding ountfort ha been manti ted by his generous through th Quntfort Centennial Committee upport of thi exhibition on many other front . allow d major con ervation of many of the om hat immode tly I belie e thi drawing on view. in tallation i the highlight of a year in which Finally, I wish to acknowledge the cDoug Chri tchurcb ha paid tribute to the Mountfort team, who ffort and de ign skills have mad legacy. Other arli r events have included a Mountfort liv again. pbotographi di play of ountfort's work and its [ thank you all. From cover: CJwrch of tlu! broad influ nee nd the ountfort centennial Good hepherd, lecture erie whil Iter thi year, in October, Phillipstoum. P th n Pr ton 1884. H ritag Week will al 0 focus on hj legacy. Director CcatJ09} architectural expression in the 'battle of the styles'. Classicism was the style of commercialism, INTRODUCTION progressivism and paganism; Gothic the architecture of Christianity, education, conservatism and traditionalism. The Canterbury Association's decision In December 849, the Canterbury Association to establish a New Zealand colony in which social asked the distinguished Gothic Revival architect, cohesion would be ensured through the presence of a William Butterfield (18 4 - 1900), to proVide a model complete diocesan estabUshment, from bishop to design for a church and school for use in the parochial clergy, and in which key educational Association's New Zealand settlement. By the time the institutions would playa prominent role, was intended first contingent of 'Canterbury Pilgrims' arrived in to counter the forces oi rampant capitalism and Lyttelton on 16 December 1850, the Gothic architectural democratisation that many believed would undermine character of Christchurcb and Canterbury had been if not destroy English society. An idealised vision of decided. Another leading Gothic Revivalist, George the Middle Ages, of a cohesive society imbued with Gilbert Scott (1811-78), designed a timber church ior Christian values and linked by bonds of deference and the fledgling colony c.1850-51 and just over a decade interdependence, provided the model for social reform later produced plans for Christ Church Cathedral, the in England as well as for the Canterbury Association's building project that embodied the highest hopes and utopian settlement in the new world. Gothic Revival ideals of tile Canterbury Association. Of these designs architecture gave this social vision a three-dimensional only the cathedral was built although fifty years reality. elapsed between the laying of the foundation stone As is the case with all utopias, the reality was and tile completion of the building. very different from th vision. Canterbury was no more Canterbury was not to rely on d signs shipped immune from Victorian social and commercial out from England. One of the .first Canterbury seltlers imperatives Ulan the rest of colonial New Zealand but ashore was Benjamin WooUield Mountfort (1825-98), the vision persisted in the architecture of Benjamin a young architect who had recently completed his Mountfort. It underpinned the design of his modest training with another leading Gothic Revivalist, Richard timber churches for country parishes and was given Cromwell Carpenter (1812-55). Included in Mountfort's unequivocal expression in his large-scale designs: the luggage were books by the most influential Gothic Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings, the Revival architect in England, Augustus Welby Canterbury Museum and Canterbury College. On Northmore Pugin (l812-52), among them The 'lrue becoming Supervising Architect of Christ Church Principles of Christian or Pointed Architecture (1841), Cathedral in 1873, he faithfully realised the designs of a book Mountfort acquired at the age of sixteen. the original architect, now Sir George Gilbert Scott, Mountfort seems to have been the semi-official but he also added embellishments of his own. As a architect of Canterbury; in 1853 the Association's agent result the building that has become the symbol of in Canterbury, Henry Sewell, identified Mountiort as Christchurcb is, in a real sense, a synthesis of the 'the Architect of Canterbury', a role he was to fulfil in contributions of both architects. aU but official designation over tI1e next four decades. The life of a colonial architect was not an easy The privileged status given to the Gothic style in one; many found it necessary to move from one centre Canterbury is demonstrated by the outrage expressed to the next as economic bust followed boom periods. by The Press on 17 March 1865 over the construction Mountfort was remarkable among his contemporaries of Leonard Terry's classical design for the Christchurch in bis commitment to Canterbury; he weathered the branch of the Bank of New Zealand. In most colonial difficult years of the 1850s, during which experience cities the construction oi such a building would have of local materials and climatic conditions was often been welcomed as a sign of prosperity and progress; dearly bought and economic uncertainty made work in Christcburch it was seen as an affront to the dignity scarce, to become New Zealand's pre-eminent Gothic of the as yet unbuilt cathedral and a repudiation of the Revivalist and one of the colony's foremost architects. artistic advances of the Gothic Revival. As The Press As the founding president of ew Zealand's first explained, the revival had led to .a larger advance in professional architectural association, the Canterbury the knowledge of, and love for beauty in architectme, Association of Architects, established in 1872, he was than at any other period in any country in the world'. a recognised authority in his field. The reaction to the Bank of New Zealand reflected the In assessing the quality of Mountfort's buildings, ideological divide in Victorian society that found no allowances need to be made for the fact that they were construct d in a coloni 1 environment. The Df his drawings have can iderable visual appeal limited material r sourc available to architects in ingeniou ly combining a multiplicity of details on ninete nth-century ew Zealand and different social singl h t with a deceptive simplicity of mean and economic condition ensured that ountfort's Occasionally lbey offer views of building wit building cannol b rni taken (or those of his English apparent disregard for the trictures against artistic ai contemporari . Mountfort confronted the constraints that he u ually ob erved. of the colonial nvironm nt by creating buildings that In the limited space of a gallery interior it i interpreted the principle of High Victorian Gothic in impo ible to show more than fragment of an nel,; way: b mplo ed 'rober where his British architect' career; lh real works of art are tantalisingl contemporari auld have u ed stone brick or iron' ab ent. Wherever po sible drawing have been he built in clearly differentiated t ges that recall the as embled in group in order to convey he three­ working meth d of m die almasons rather than those dimen iona! Quality of the buildings repre ented.