Historic Places Trust to continue fight

New Zealand Historic Places Trust Information release
21 June 2006

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust has vowed to continue the fight to retain Dunedin's Logan Park Gallery.

Southern region general manager Bruce Albiston today described the Dunedin City Council's decision to apply for resource consent to remove the former 1925 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition Art Gallery Building at Logan Park as "regrettable."

"The Trust rejects the description of the building as being in a derelict and parlous state," he said. "The Council may think that they're removing the building and saving appropriate historical features for use in other buildings, but this is demolition."

Mr Albiston said previous inspections had indicated the building appeared sound and even the Council's own heritage schedule protected the entire exterior of the building.

The building was registered by the Trust in 1982 as a Category II historic place and Mr Albiston said it was currently being reviewed for Category I status due to its outstanding significance.

Trust research to date has indicated the Logan Park Gallery is the only building from six great exhibitions held in New Zealand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to survive in situ. The exhibitions were part of an international movement and the former gallery, while modest in scale, formed part of that wider story.

"The building's social and historical significance to Dunedin and New Zealand reaches beyond just the architectural values and is of considerable international interest," said Mr Albiston.

"It tells an important part of Dunedin's story and its important links in such places as Melbourne and San Francisco. Connections with those international cities and their sites date from before the era of the great Exhibitions, but were enhanced by the Sargood family endowment of the Logan Park Gallery."

Mr Albiston said his own recent visits to the international sites had reinforced for him just how important it was for the Trust to work proactively with Dunedin City Council and the community to preserve this important building on its historic site.

He said its loss would be "irreplaceable" and contrary to the principle in section 4 of the Historic Places Act, which states: "historic places have lasting value in their own right and provide evidence of the origins of New Zealand's distinct society."

Mr Albiston said the Historic Places Trust would continue to fight for the retention of the former gallery and would be seeking further discussions with the Dunedin City Council at the highest level.

A decision on the review of the building's registration will be made by the Historic Places Trust Board at its meeting on 30 June 2006.

Contact for further information:
Bruce Albiston
General Manager Southern Region
P O Box 4403, Christchurch
Ph (03) 377 3968
Email : balbiston@historic.org.nz