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Francis Petre

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Architecture

   Francis Petre
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   Francis Petre

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   Francis (Frank) William Petre ( 27 August 1847– 10 December 1918) was a
   prominent New Zealand-born architect based in Dunedin. Before his time,
   19th-century New Zealand architecture was dominated by an almost
   institutionalized Gothic revival style, used by the British Empire for
   its far-flung colonies. Petre, one of the first of New Zealand's
   native-born architects, played an important part in guiding it towards
   the Palladian and Renaissance styles of southern Europe, which were
   more suited to New Zealand's climate than Gothic.

   Able to work competently in a wide diversity of architectural styles,
   he was also notable for his pioneering work in concrete development and
   construction. He designed numerous public and private buildings, many
   of which are still standing in and around Dunedin. Today his private
   houses are among the most distinguished and sought after in New
   Zealand. However, he is chiefly remembered for the monumental Roman
   Catholic cathedrals of Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, which
   survive today as testimony to his talent and architectural expertise.

Early life

   The Petres were an aristocratic family from Ingatestone in Essex,
   England. Francis Petre's immediate family was one of the first and most
   prominent colonial families of New Zealand; Petre Bay, Chatham Island
   was named after them, as - originally - was the town of Wanganui in the
   North Island. The Wellington suburb of Thorndon was named after the
   family's Thorndon Hall estate in England. Petre was the son of the
   Honourable Henry William Petre, who first came to New Zealand in 1840
   as director of the New Zealand Company of which his own father, Lord
   Petre, had been chairman. The New Zealand Company had been set up to
   promote the colonisation of New Zealand, and bought, sometimes
   dubiously,^ thousands of hectares of land from the Māori. Consequently,
   Henry Petre was one of the founders of Wellington. He was also colonial
   treasurer of New Munster. 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".

   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. In 1855, in the then British colonial tradition, Petre
   was sent to England to be educated. He attended the Mount St Mary
   College in the north of England, where he was taught by the Jesuits.
   After four years, he left to attend the Royal Naval College, then at
   Portsmouth (the college moved to Greenwich in 1869). 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. Returning to England, he completed his education at
   Ushaw College, Durham.

   Members of British aristocratic families at this time seldom had to
   "earn a living", as they would generally be possessed of a private
   income and enter one of the military services or the church. However,
   as the third son of the younger son of a peer, it was always clear that
   Petre would have to provide his own income, and consequently he was
   apprenticed from 1864 to 1869 to Joseph Samuda of London, a shipbuilder
   and engineer. Here he received his training in the techniques and
   skills of concrete manufacturing, which he was to employ with great
   acclaim in his later architectural career.

   Circa 1869 Petre qualified as an architect and engineer, and after a
   brief period in private practice in London working for architect and
   engineer Daniel Cubitt Nicholls he returned to New Zealand in 1872. He
   was then employed as an engineer by railway contractors Brogden and
   Sons. During this period, he oversaw the construction of both the
   Blenheim– Picton and Dunedin– Balclutha railway lines, as well as the
   draining of parts of the Taieri Plains and the construction of tunnels
   on the Central Otago Railway, some of which are today open to the
   public as part of the Otago Central Rail Trail. When these tasks were
   completed, he set up his own practice as an engineer and architect in
   Liverpool Street, Dunedin.

Architect

   St Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin, as Petre intended it. This design was
   never completed.
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   St Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin, as Petre intended it. This design was
   never completed.

   From 1875 Petre seems to have devoted his life to architecture, in
   particular ecclesiastical architecture. No doubt influenced by the
   fashion of the time, especially by the acclaimed Christchurch architect
   Benjamin Mountfort, Petre initially designed in the Gothic revival
   style, which he praised for

     the great richness and delicacy of detail, and the closer
     application of geometrical rules to architecture–more especially in
     the window tracery which exhibits greater variety of design,
     together with an easier and more perfect flow into the various parts
     of the whole structure ^.

   The English Gothic revival style had become popular for Protestant
   church architecture in the British colonies, as it had in Britain
   itself, following the rise of the Oxford Movement - a school of
   Anglo-Catholic intellectuals who felt that medieval Gothic architecture
   inspired a greater spirituality than other styles based on
   non-Christian temples. The Anglican church abroad adopted this theory
   as not only a nostalgic reminder of home to the Empire builders, but
   also as holding out more hope of impressing the natives to be converted
   to Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, however, of which Petre was
   a member, wishing to be distinctive, adopted southern continental forms
   of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. Thus it was the Catholic Church
   that gave Petre his greatest opportunities of proving his worth as an
   architect by producing Cathedrals, Basilicas and churches in revived
   French and Italian styles.

   Petre's early specialty was his work in mass concrete, at the time a
   novel building material in New Zealand. Widely used by the ancient
   Romans the formula for making it was lost and a new one only invented
   in the 18th century. Three of Petre's earliest projects were all
   constructed in this material: Judge Chapman's house (today known as
   "Castlemore"), the clifftop villa nicknamed Cargill's Castle in 1876,
   and St. Dominic's Priory in 1877. However, according to the whims of
   his patrons, he did also work with more conventional building
   materials.

St Dominic's Priory, Dunedin

   St. Dominic's Priory.
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   St. Dominic's Priory.

   Petre described the style of his 1876-77 creation, St Dominic's Priory,
   as Anglo-Saxon, referring to the straight-sloped window apertures. The
   style of the building, however, was very much of Petre's own
   interpretation and only lightly influenced by Anglo-Saxon architecture.

   The building is notable for its use of poured concrete, a comparatively
   new building material in 1870s New Zealand, but one well suited to the
   creation of the large number of windows in the building's facade. The
   structure is simultaneously grand and austere, reflecting well its use
   as a convent.

   St Dominic's Priory was the largest un-reinforced concrete building in
   the southern hemisphere (steel reinforcing being then an unknown
   construction method), and earned Petre the lasting nickname of "Lord
   Concrete".

Cathedrals

   F. W. Petre designed three of New Zealand's cathedrals, each
   distinguished by a different architectural style: St Joseph's Cathedral
   in Dunedin, the Cathedral of the Sacret Heart in Wellington and the
   Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Christchurch.

1878 St Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin

   St Joseph's Cathedral, the completed church, a fraction of the size
   originally planned. Minus its intended spire and chancel (illustrated
   above), it is still an impressive edifice.
   Enlarge
   St Joseph's Cathedral, the completed church, a fraction of the size
   originally planned. Minus its intended spire and chancel (illustrated
   above), it is still an impressive edifice.

   While Petre designed many churches, schools, public buildings, and
   private houses, his largest and grandest design, the Roman Catholic
   cathedral at Dunedin, was never fully completed. The entrance facade
   and the nave are the original design, and display the cathedral as a
   prime example of the French Gothic Revival. Today St Joseph's
   Cathedral, which stands next to St Dominic's Priory, seems reminiscent
   of many of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, with its twin towers
   and central rose window– Chartres and Notre Dame come to mind. Petre's
   original intention, however, was for a mighty structure, with the twin
   towers dwarfed by a huge spire some 60 metres (200 ft) in height, which
   would have resulted in a magnificent cathedral. In the event, the
   project stalled when a prudent Roman Catholic diocese reluctant to
   incur unnecessary debt postponed further work with the onset of the
   1880s depression.

   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. Construction work began in 1878 and the
   building was consecrated in 1886. Its construction is notable for its
   foundations: 40 massive concrete piles, each over 1.2 metres (four
   feet) in width, sunk 10 metres (35 ft) into the ground, give the
   cathedral a firm foundation on the volcanic bedrock. The nave is 24
   metres (80 feet) in length and 16 metres (52 ft) in height. The walls
   of the cathedral are in black basalt with cornices of white Oamaru
   stone, a style for which Dunedin and Christchurch architecture is noted
   (see also Dunedin Railway Station). Petre was later to have two further
   opportunities for cathedral design, but St. Joseph's was to remain his
   largest work in the Gothic style.

1901 Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Wellington

   The Basilica of "The Sacred Heart", circa 1910: a Palladian temple in
   Wellington.
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   The Basilica of "The Sacred Heart", circa 1910: a Palladian temple in
   Wellington.
   In the classically simple interior of "The Sacred Heart", the altar is
   given prominence by Serlian arches.The columns in the nave are ionic,
   supporting a clerestory.
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   In the classically simple interior of "The Sacred Heart", the altar is
   given prominence by Serlian arches.The columns in the nave are ionic,
   supporting a clerestory.
   The Sacred Heart today.
   Enlarge
   The Sacred Heart today.

   That Wellington's principal Roman Catholic Cathedral is today a small,
   but quite perfect, Romano- Grecian temple is entirely the result of
   chance. The Sacred Heart Basilica, now a cathedral, was originally
   designed and conceived as a church to mark the site of the fire-gutted
   St Mary's Cathedral. Petre had strong family connections to the site,
   as it and an adjacent plot, now the site of St Mary's College, had been
   given to the Roman Catholic Church by his father and grandfather. The
   original cathedral, a grand Gothic structure complete with flying
   buttresses, had been built in 1850 but was destroyed by fire in 1898.
   Within two days Petre had been asked to design a new church on the
   site. A decision was taken, however, to build the new Cathedral nearer
   the more densely populated areas of Wellington, Te Aro and Newtown.
   Petre later published plans for this Cathedral in 1903, describing his
   proposed structure as "Roman, bordering on to Florentine Renaissance,
   treated liberally". Sadly, this cathedral project never came to
   fruition, but what was quickly constructed was the Church, or Basilica,
   of "The Sacred Heart" on the razed cathedral site.

   Architectural ideas of the mid 19th century advanced by such architects
   as Pugin and still adhered to by the recently deceased prominent New
   Zealand architect Benjamin Mountfort, decreed that only Gothic was
   suitable for Christian worship. 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 heretical for worship.

   The design was theatrical in the extreme. The imposing principal facade
   of Oamaru Stone consisted almost solely of one huge portico constructed
   of six ionic columns, while the facade was crowned by a high pediment
   more in the style of Vitruvius than Palladio, and behind the great
   facade stretched the single body of the church, with the remaining
   facades in a less severe Romanesque style. Considering that his brief
   was that "a serviceable church in brick should be erected on the site
   of the old Cathedral", it is amazing that such an almost avant-garde
   style should have been permitted. The completed structure would not be
   out of place in 17th century or 18th century Rome or Venice.

   The interior of the church continued the Palladian theme. The large
   nave was colonnaded, with the columns supporting a clerestory of
   arch-topped windows, while the chancel was approached through an
   enormous arch that mirrored the classic Palladian Serlian arch,
   providing theatre and drama at the high altar. The flat
   compartmentalised ceiling is a more restrained version of that of the
   church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice. Unfortunately, the
   church's twin bell towers had to be removed following an earthquake in
   1942.

   The cost of the new church was taken from funds intended for the
   construction of the new cathedral, thus delaying that project. After
   seventy years of delays, the intention to build the new cathedral was
   finally abandoned. In 1984, following new enlargements and additions,
   Petre's church of the Sacred Heart was reconsecrated as Wellington's
   principal Roman Catholic Cathedral. In 1901 when the church was
   designed, Petre's use of the Palladian as a style for such a high
   profile building would have been unusual in New Zealand.

1904 Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch

   Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch, F. W. Petre's largest
   completed work. The central pediment is in the style of Sebastiano
   Serlio.
   Enlarge
   Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch, F. W. Petre's largest
   completed work. The central pediment is in the style of Sebastiano
   Serlio.

   Of all Petre's many designs, the most outstanding is usually considered
   to be the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in
   Christchurch, commonly known as the Christchurch Basilica. Commenced in
   1901, it replaced a smaller wooden church designed by Benjamin
   Mountfort that had been in use since 1864. The cathedral was officially
   opened on 12 February 1905, a mere four years after construction began.
   Today the building, said by some to be based on the 19th-century Church
   of Vincent-de-Paul, in Paris, is held to be the finest renaissance
   style building in Australasia.

   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 cross section of the church (as in St. Peter's 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.
   Cathedral of The Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch, under construction.
   The nave is lined with Ionic columns.
   Enlarge
   Cathedral of The Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch, under construction.
   The nave is lined with Ionic columns.

   While often likened to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, it is
   conceivable that the greatest influence behind this great structure was
   Benoit Haffreingue. During Petre's formative years studying under
   Haffreingue in France, Haffreingue had been the driving force of the
   reconstruction of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Boulogne-sur-Mer, a
   French cathedral that has a very similar plan to that of The Blessed
   Sacrament, including the controversial siting of the dome over the
   altar rather than the centre of the cathedral.

   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". Fifty men were employed
   on the site, and in excess of 120,000 cubic ft (3400 m³) of stone, 4000
   cubic ft (110 m³) of concrete, and 90 tons of steel were used in the
   construction. Problems with finding suitable stone for the construction
   of such a large structure caused financial difficulties during the
   construction, and a special bill was pushed through parliament by then
   Premier Richard Seddon in order to aid with the financing of the
   building. The total cost to the Roman Catholic diocese was £52,000.

Private houses

   The styles in which F. W. Petre designed his private houses were as
   diverse as those of his cathedrals and churches. It seems that, unlike
   many notable architects, he designed according to the wishes of his
   clients: those who wanted a castle received a castle, and those who
   wished for a small mansion disguised as an English Tudor cottage were
   equally fortunate.
   "Castlamore", Lovelock Avenue, Dunedin, designed by F. W. Petre. This
   Gothic house merely hints at a castle theme, and has none of the Gothic
   gloom and sobriety of the small lancet windows and turrets generally
   associated with the style.
   Enlarge
   "Castlamore", Lovelock Avenue, Dunedin, designed by F. W. Petre. This
   Gothic house merely hints at a castle theme, and has none of the Gothic
   gloom and sobriety of the small lancet windows and turrets generally
   associated with the style.

   A large private residence designed by Petre can be found in Lovelock
   Avenue, Dunedin. It was originally built for Judge Chapman in 1875 and
   christened "Woodside", though it has been known throughout much of its
   history as "Castlamore". This imposing structure sits on the slopes of
   Dunedin's Botanical Gardens close to the University of Otago, and is a
   triumph of restraint. The castle atmosphere is there, almost a Scottish
   baronial castle, but the battlements are merely hinted at by stepped
   gables. Large bay windows, allowing light to flood in, again merely
   hint at the Gothic; one has to study them closely to perceive that they
   consist of a series of lancet type windows. The large octagonal
   chimneys reflect the design rather than being ostentatious.

   This design could have been a grim bombastic faux castle, yet appears
   as a comfortable dwelling complete with loggia and conservatory. A
   lesser architect might not have been able to resist the addition of a
   small turret or pinnacle. 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. In this way Petre was referring in a modest
   way to the original Gothic revival period as conceived by such
   architects as James Wyatt, rather than the later Gothic, after it had
   fallen under the ecclesiastical Anglo-Catholic influences of such
   architects as Augustus Pugin in England, and Benjamin Mountfort in New
   Zealand.
   Pinner House, Dunedin: a perfect example of the "English Cottage" style
   which Petre popularised at the beginning of the 20th century.
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   Pinner House, Dunedin: a perfect example of the "English Cottage" style
   which Petre popularised at the beginning of the 20th century.

   One of Petre's abilities was that he could vary his styles of
   architecture. In 1883 he built a mansion in Christchurch known as
   "Llanmaes" for a local merchant. The style selected came to be known in
   New Zealand as the "English Cottage" style. This was a complete
   reversal of his previous work: rather than impressive grandeur, this
   style was intended to evoke rustic charm. However, the large size of
   these "cottages" made them more akin to Marie Antoinette's Petit hameau
   at Versailles than a humble English cottage. Similar in nature to the
   work of George Devey at a similar time in England, the style was a form
   of idealised Tudor with half-timbered black beams set into white
   painted walls, beneath beamed gables and tiled roofs. This form of
   design eventually became very popular in New Zealand from circa 1910.

   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) is a perfect example of this traditional style,
   adapted for the brighter and warmer southern climate, with large
   windows and verandahs. It was built in the 1880s for Aufrere Fenwick,
   one of Dunedin's main stockbrokers. Opposite, a very similar house was
   constucted by Petre for his own residence.

Personal life

   One of Petre's first large houses, the folly-like Cargill's Castle, was
   built for Edward Bowes Cargill, a local politician and later a mayor of
   Dunedin. It is also very likely that Petre was the supervisor of
   construction on a tunnel that Cargill had constructed to a private
   secluded beach below the castle (today known as Tunnel Beach). While
   designing the house, Petre fell in love with Cargill's daughter
   Margaret. After a difficult courtship (due to Petre's staunch
   Catholicism and the Cargill family's equally staunch Presbyterianism)
   the couple were eventually permitted to marry, the marriage taking
   place in the villa's principal salon shortly after its completion in
   1877. The building was gutted by fire in the 1940s, and is today a
   preserved ruin. Petre and his wife had thirteen children; Petre himself
   had been the third child of sixteen.

   In 1903, Petre was appointed Consular Agent for Italy in Dunedin
   following the death of Edward Cargill. He was a founder member of the
   New Zealand Institute of Architects, was elected a Fellow in 1905, and
   was president of the Institute in 1907–08. Unusually for a man at the
   peak of his profession, Petre was known as congenial and popular. He
   died at Dunedin, in December 1918, following 42 years of architectural
   practice, and was buried at the Anderson's Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.

Evaluation

   For an architect Dunedin was an exciting place to be in the late 19th
   century, due to its great prosperity and subsequent expansion just
   before and after the turn of the 20th century, these being largely the
   result of the Central Otago goldrush of the 1860s, the subsequent
   development of the refrigerated meat export trade and then the
   gold-dredging boom.

   Petre certainly did not obtain his many important commissions because
   of a void of alternative architects. The equally versatile architect R.
   A. Lawson was responsible for several important buildings in the city
   including the neoclassical ANZ Bank building and the Gothic revival
   Presbyterian First Church. 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. Nor did Petre
   obtain work, with the possible exception of the Sacred Heart Basilica
   at Wellington, because of his family connections. On the contrary, his
   Catholicism, at the height of the British Empire, possibly lost him
   more ecclesiastical commissions than those for which he was ever
   engaged. What stood out was his engineer's practicalities at overcoming
   almost impossible difficulties. St. Joseph's Cathedral was actually
   built not only on the side of a hill, but also in a gully. His
   pioneering work with concrete and steel was of enormous value in a
   country where earthquakes were a constant risk.

   Petre's buildings, in whatever style, all have one common denominator:
   an attention to the smallest detail. It was said that his drawings of
   stones, window traceries, arches and ornamentation were so precise that
   stonemasons could execute his intentions from one single drawing. 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. While this precision enabled
   him to work as successfully in the wide range of styles as he did, it
   in no way inhibited his sense of developing design. In his own words,
   an architectural style could be "treated liberally”, and this is the
   key to the individuality of his designs. Dunedin's Royal Exchange
   building is a Palladian town Palace, yet has an almost Rastrellian
   restrained baroque design. Cargill's Castle would not have looked out
   of place in the Cimini Hills; it also has an almost hacienda spirit.
   His work in the Gothic style was lighter and more delicate than that of
   Alfred Waterhouse, and equal in detail to Augustus Pugin's. It has been
   said of his work that he never fully developed his vision or overcame
   the limitations of his training,^ but his experience as an engineer
   equipped him to find sound innovative solutions to constructional
   problems. His placing the dome at the Blessed Sacrament over the altar
   has also been criticised, as many feel it does not cohere to the
   design. However, others feel it was a stroke of genius, enhancing the
   interior.

   Francis Petre's work cannot be judged against that of the great
   classical architects of the northern hemisphere, who so clearly
   influenced him. He did not create a style or have a revival period
   named after him. His achievement was adapting and developing so many
   established styles well; whether through the new techniques of steel or
   concrete, or through more traditional building methods. 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 speak for themselves as to his talent.

Works by Petre

     * Woodside mansion (Castlamore), Dunedin, for Judge Chapman, 1875.
       Style: Gothic revival.
     * Cargill's Castle, Dunedin, for E. B. Cargill, 1876. Style: mixed
       Italianate/Castelated/Gothic.
     * St. Dominic's Priory, Dunedin, 1877. Style: Gothic revival. - all
       three of these in poured concrete.
     * St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin, 1878–1886. Style: Gothic Revival.
     * Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Building, Dunedin, 1881–1882.
       Style: Palladian.
     * Llanmaes mansion, Christchurch, 1883. Style: English cottage.
     * Phoenix House, Dunedin (now Airport House), c.1885.
     * Pinner House, Dunedin, c.1885. Style: English cottage.
     * Sacred Heart Church, Dunedin, 1891.
     * St. Patrick's Church, Lawrence, 1892.
     * St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Milton, 1892.
     * St. Patrick's Basilica, Oamaru, 1893–1903. Style: mixed Palladian &
       Renaissance.
     * Sacred Heart Basilica (now Cathedral of the Sacred Heart),
       Wellington, 1901. Style: Palladian.
     * Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch, 1904–05. Style:
       Italian Renaissance.
     * St. Mary's Roman Catholic Basilica, Invercargill, 1905.
     * St.Patrick's Church, Waimate, 1908. Style: Romanesque with
       Italianate cupola and campanile.
     * Church of the Sacred Heart, Timaru (Timaru Basilica), 1910. Style:
       Byzantine.

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