It is vital to protect and enhance our built heritage
IWAS disappointed by the editorial which appeared in the Otago Daily Times on Monday, February 6. It had much to say in praise of the city’s built heritage but ended by saying people should keep their minds open to projects like the proposed 18level hotel for the Filleul St car park. Along the way, it repeated Mayor Dave Cull’s remark that trying to ‘‘mimic’’ the heritage surroundings would be ‘‘false’’ and his claim the revised design ‘‘acknowledged’’ them.
In my last column I pointed out why Mr Cull’s remark about mimicking the heritage buildings and that being ‘‘false’’ don’t stand scrutiny. The three prominent heritage buildings it would stand in close visual proximity to all use styles which first appeared centuries before they were built, yet nobody accuses them of mimicry or being ‘‘false’’. Instead, they are considered fine examples of revivalist architecture and all have been made historic places in recognition of that. How the proposed 18level chiefly glassclad structure acknowledges those buildings entirely eludes me.
At an earlier point, while discussing the decks to be built outside the Railway Station, for which permission has been granted, the editorial said ‘‘Dunedin cannot exist as an historic and static museum’’. I have heard such remarks before but, really, this is setting up a straw man. I have been engaged in discussions about Dunedin’s old buildings since the beginning of the 1970s. I have never met anyone who thinks the city should be a historic and static museum. People seeking to protect old buildings often go out of their way to make it clear this is not their view.
The editorial acknowledges the building would soar above the site’s 10m zoning height limit — 10m would permit four floors above the ground — and thus would need a resource consent. So it would and I don’t believe it should be given one, but not for the reason the editorial appears to be considering. It notes that Norman Ledgerwood has written to the Otago Daily Times praising the revised design and that I have maintained a glassclad structure close to heritage buildings is a most unfortunate contrast. But then it says ‘‘The aesthetics and reactions to architecture are like those to public art, unavoidably prompting differing views’’.
But the essence of opposition to the revised design is not about subjective assessments of its aesthetics. It is about objective factors. The contrast between the glass cladding of the revised design and the masonry cladding of the heritage buildings is a matter of objective fact.
So, too, is that at the proposed height it would rise above the ground there it would eclipse or curtail the views of many like me who can at present plainly see the heritage buildings. It surprises me the project has got so far as it has but the council is giving ominous signs of favouring it. It has used council
money to pay for site testing.
I want to discuss a not very wellknown artist Lavinia Fontana (15521614) who has the distinction of being a successful woman artist of the Renaissance. She is regarded as the first woman to work in the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent. It’s said she was the first woman artist to paint female nudes and she was the main breadwinner of a family of 13.
She was born in Bologna, the daughter of Prospero Fontana (151297), a painter and prominent member of the school of Bologna who taught her to paint. Her earliest known work is now lost. It was called Monkey Child and was painted in 1575 when Lavinia was 23. Another early work painted in 1576, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion is now in the El Paso Museum of Art. Over time, she worked in a number of genres. Early in her career she was best known for painting upperclass residents of Bologna.
Her early commercial productions were small devotional paintings on copper. People used them as papal and diplomatic gifts. As well as portraits, which female artists typically made, she later made largescale paintings with religious and mythological themes which sometimes included female nudes.
In 1577, she married Paolo Zappi (sometimes spelt Paolo Fappi). She had 11 children, although only three outlived her. She continued painting to support the family. Paolo took care of the household and worked as his wife’s painting assistant.
Her SelfPortrait at the Clavichord with a Servant is an oil painting on canvas painted c.1577. It shows an interior with the artist at her keyboard instrument, what seems to be a male servant standing beyond her holding sheet music and a window beyond. It seems to be a fine work.
Lavinia moved to Rome in 1603 where her success continued and where she died.