Architecture of Dunedin.
BY N. Y. A. Wales.
HE Architectural features of Dunedin, unlike those of Victoria and the older and more populous Australian colonies, owe their origin more to private enterprize than to the Government of the colony. Here no Parliament houses, treasury buildings, printing offices, public library, handsome railway station, nor modernised hospital, such as the Alfred Hospital at Sydney, rear their classic columns or pointed gables to attract the attention of our neighbours, who may honour us with a visit to our National Exhibition. Nor have we any engineering monument like the Princes Bridge. Nor would it be becoming of us to boast of the Exhibition building, though we may cherish a latent pride in contemplating the proportions to which it has grown from small beginnings, if we may not enter into comparisons with the vastness and grandeur of the buildings erected for exhibition purposes by our Victorian and New South Wales neighbours.
The Dunedin Exhibition building has been designed more with a view to economy than appearance, more for utility than effect, more for large proportions to provide space for exhibits than for symmetry and beauty of design, and more with a view to subsequent utilization and substantial returns, than for present visual gratification. Yet it is not altogether without pretensions. Its façade, in comparison with other structures of the kind hitherto attempted in New Zealand, is indeed palatial and imposing, and bears the stamp of some originality, and has some commendable features.
Strangers and tourists in search of health or pleasure, or travellers on business bent—and a large number of both classes visit us for the sake of our salubrious climate, or to obtain a share of our trade—all speak highly of our city and of its buildings, and the architectural merit they display. Some even betray sur-
