Design for The Town Hall, Dunedin.

Scarce, c.19th hand coloured engraving of the original Dunedin, Town Hall.

The original Victorian Dunedin Town Hall was designed by R. A. Lawson and erected in the 1870s, during a period when Dunedin was at the height of its prosperity following the Otago gold rushes. Lawson, one of New Zealand’s most important nineteenth-century architects, was responsible for many of the city’s major public buildings and brought a confident High Victorian character to his civic designs. Lawson’s Town Hall stood prominently on the Octagon and was conceived as a symbol of municipal authority and urban maturity. Executed in a robust Victorian classical style, the building accommodated council chambers, administrative offices, and public meeting spaces. It served as the centre of Dunedin’s civic life for several decades, hosting municipal business as well as public events.

By the early twentieth century the building was considered outdated and inadequate for the city’s needs. It was demolished in the late 1920s to make way for the present Dunedin Town Hall complex, opened in 1930.

From the original edition of the Illustrated Australian News. 

Collections:
University Queensland: Identifier 991000982479703131
State Library Victoria: PCINF IAN 03-10-77 P.156
National Library Australia: Bib ID 2495305
State Library New South Wales: CALL NUMBERS F079/55, TN380
Royal Geographic Society SA: RGS Special Coll. 079.94 I29d

References:
Syme, E. & D, Illustrated Australian News. ISSN 2208-5386.