Built: 1971-1973
Address: 144 Rattray Street
Architects: Collins, Hunt & Associates
Structural consulting engineers: E.G.S. Powell, Fenwick & Partners
Main contractor: Naylor Love Construction Ltd

Philip Laing House opened fifty years ago today. Not that it had that name then – it was the Government Life Building. The Government Life Insurance Office had been set up in 1869 with government capital, in response to concerns about the affordability and security of life insurance. It was New Zealand’s first major life insurance provider with a network of offices, and in 1877 it was bigger than all of its rivals combined. It dominated the local market for more than a century.

In 1885, Government Life purchased a property at the corner of Princes and Rattray Street, including what had been Ross & Kilgour’s store. Built in 1860, and later extended, this was one of the city’s earliest stone buildings. The location became known as Wise’s Corner due to its association with the publisher, stationer, and printer Henry Wise. After occupying the old buildings for some years, Government Life had a lavishly-appointed new building designed by Mason & Wales erected for it between 1895 and 1897. It housed them, other government departments, and various tenants, for more than seventy years, but sadly ended its days in a rundown and mutilated state.

A new nine-storey building was announced in 1970. Demolition work ended around January the following year. The cost was over $1.8 million dollars, which adjusted for inflation (imperfect as these comparisons are) is about $30 million in today’s money.

The architects were Collins, Hunt & Associates of Christchurch, long-standing architects to Government Life. They were the second-oldest architectural firm in the country after Mason & Wales, having been founded by William Armson in 1864, and through various names and partnerships they practiced until 1993. John Kempthorne Collins (1916-1983), principal and apparently the lead architect for the Dunedin project, was from the third generation of his family in the business. Naylor Love were the main contractors and C.T. Morgan, formerly the council’s chief building inspector, was the clerk of works.

Largely complete by the end of 1972, the building was officially opened by Roger Douglas on 15 August 1973. Then the youngest member of Norman Kirk’s cabinet, thirty-five-year-old Douglas was Postmaster-General and the minister in charge of the Government Life Insurance Office. He said it was pleasing that, despite a population drift to the north, the office could build such impressive structures, ‘knowing there are plenty of South Islanders left who require insurance policies’. Also present was James Barnes, the mayor, who in full booster mode said: ‘This city is certainly on the march. No longer have we any idea that we are in the backwash of New Zealand. We will not stop making progress’. Dunedin Central MP Brian MacDonell, the other guest speaker, said the building was evidence of the government’s policy of placing departments in towns and cities outside Wellington. These words all reflected an optimistic view that the city might be pulling itself out of stagnation.

The building is 40 metres tall, built with 9,624 tons of concrete and 371 tons of steel. The street facades have vertical shafts of grey Tākaka margle, ‘relieved by the vertical lines of white window reveals and coloured tiled spandrels between them’. The current tiles are not the originals. The main entrance from Rattray Street led to three lifts. This space was panelled in marble, with marble and quartzite tiles on the floor and a bright orange-spangled ceiling. It was later renovated in a more sober modern fashion, but some original features remain.

A few other features of the building included radiant ceiling panels, fluorescent lighting, and reversible windows, so both sides of could be cleaned from the inside. Oil stored in the basement was pumped to the boilerhouse on the roof, where other services were also housed.

Government Life did not need most of the building – it occupied the ground and first floor at the corner. The Department of Social Welfare occupied a significant portion, and the top floors were used by the Ministry of Works. Three shops faced Princes Street.

Government Life became Tower Corporation in 1987, and the building was sold in 1988. It was after this that it was named Philip Laing House, after the second of the colonist ships to arrive in Otago in 1848, and a nod to the even larger John Wickliffe House diagonally opposite.

In 1991, Tower Insurance announced it was moving its office to Moray Place. By this time ownership of the company had transferred to the policy holders, and in 1999 the company was demutualised. Its old building continues to make itself useful.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 13 January 1885 p.2 (purchase of property), 15 August 1973 pp.16-17 (supplement), 16 August 1973 p.8 (report of opening), 15 July 1988 p.3 (sale).