Francis Petre

He followed the Catholic Church's initiative to build places of worship in Anglo-Saxon countries inspired by Romance forms of architecture.

Henry seems to have been a man of strange appearance, from the description by his contemporary, the New Zealand social commentator Charlotte Godley: "He is immensely tall and thin and looks like a set of fire irons badly hung together".

[2] Francis Petre was born in 1847 at Petone, today a suburb of Lower Hutt in the North Island, which was one of the earliest British settlements in New Zealand.

Finding himself unsuited to a naval career he pursued his education in France, where he attended the charismatic priest Benoit Haffreingue's college at Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Members of British aristocratic families would generally be possessed of a private income and often entered one of the military services or the church, although other professions were becoming increasingly common.

The Roman Catholic Church, however, of which Petre was a member, wishing to be distinctive, adopted southern continental forms of Gothic and Renaissance architecture.

Three of Petre's earliest projects were all constructed in this material: Judge Chapman's house (today known as "Castlamore" or "Woodside"), the clifftop villa nicknamed Cargill's Castle in 1876, and St. Dominic's Priory in 1877.

While Petre designed many churches, schools, public buildings, and private houses, his largest and grandest project, the Roman Catholic cathedral at Dunedin, was never fully completed.

The architect's intention was for a mighty structure, with the twin towers dwarfed by a lofty spire some 60 metres (200 ft) in height, which would have been a magnificent edifice.

In the event, the project stalled when a prudent Roman Catholic diocese reluctant to incur unnecessary debt with the onset of the 1880s depression postponed further work.

Petre's intention, which is clear from the almost 90 pages of drawings held in the diocesan archives, was to design the most impressive cathedral in Australasia.

Petre later published plans for this cathedral in 1903, describing his proposed structure as "Roman, bordering on to Florentine Renaissance, treated liberally".

Ignoring these old-fashioned and now expensive rules, Petre designed the new church in the Palladian style, which in this country had only a few years before been considered almost too heretical for worship.

Forsaking Mountfort's 19th-century Gothic, Petre designed the new church in a Renaissance, Italian basilica style, albeit with one major exception.

Ignoring Renaissance convention, Petre obtained a greater visual impact by siting the Italianate green copper-roofed dome not above the crossing (as in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome), but directly above the sanctuary.

In Petre's opinion, this design element, coupled with the Byzantine apse, added extra grandeur and theatre to the high altar set in the tribune.

The nave and chancel roofs were supported by colonnades of ionic columns and the entrance facade of the cathedral was flanked by twin towers in the manner of many of Europe's great renaissance churches.

The cathedral, constructed of concrete sheathed in Oamaru limestone, was widely acclaimed, causing the famous author George Bernard Shaw to describe Petre as a "New Zealand Brunelleschi".

This photograph shows how the walls are constructed using a succession of arches surmounted by stone which forms part of the roofs of the aisles.

This imposing structure sits on the slopes of the Dunedin Botanic Gardens close to the University of Otago, and is an exercise in restraint.

Petre's ingenuity lay in knowing how to mix large windows and more comfortable features with the medieval, and then ascertaining the exact moment to halt the Gothic theme before it became a pastiche of the original.

This was a complete reversal of his previous work: rather than impressive grandeur, this style was intended to evoke nostalgic rustic charm.

Two of Petre's "English Cottages" exist close to each other in Cliffs Road, Dunedin, overlooking the sea in the suburb of St Clair.

Pinner House (pictured below) is a perfect example of this traditional style, adapted for the brighter and warmer southern climate, with large windows and verandahs.

[9] He died at Dunedin, in December 1918, following 42 years of architectural practice and two days after the opening of the finally completed St Patrick's Basilica, Oamaru.

These were largely the result of the Otago gold rush of the 1860s, the subsequent development of the refrigerated meat export trade and then the gold-dredging boom.

W. B. Armson designed the Italian Renaissance Bank of New Zealand building in 1879, and George Troup was responsible for the magnificent Dunedin Railway Station.

It is this attention to detail which is outstanding, whether the simple carving on the capital of an Ionic column or the heavy ornate work on the monumental corbel of a Gothic design.

It has been said of his work that he never fully developed his vision or overcame the limitations of his training,[1] but his experience as an engineer equipped him to find sound innovative solutions to construction problems.

He was given amazing opportunities to prove himself worthy as an accomplished and inspired architect; the many monumental buildings with which he provided New Zealand are testimony to his talent.