The former Central Police Station was originally built as a pair of four storey plus basement buildings facing Waring Taylor and Johnston Streets with a three storey annexe building constructed to the west of the original courtyard. The police station was partly demolished in the early to mid 1990s. An extra floor was added to the Waring Taylor and Johnston Street buildings, and the remaining parts of the original interior were converted for use as retail and office space, and a car park. A multi-storey Post-Modern (PoMo) tower was constructed in the centre of the site; the original cell block annexe was replaced by a jarring PoMo entrance to Midland Park; and a modern (but sympathetically designed) car parking building was constructed to the west of the building. The addition of a sculptural glass and steel canopy at first-floor (floor) level, although not an original feature of the building, has been carefully considered, and is one of the better examples of a modern verandah on a heritage building within the CBD.
The remaining early or original building fabric is restricted to parts of the Waring Taylor and Johnston Street blocks of the Central Police Station including the facades, part of the existing concrete floors / timber floor coverings and some of the internal structural walls. The facades have been somewhat compromised by the addition of a large plain pseudo-parapet that presumably conceals a fifth floor of car parking, and by the decision to paint the facing brick in the 1990s.
These were designed by Government Architect, John Campbell, who had established Edwardian Baroque as the official “government style” for official buildings including police stations, law courts and post offices. The most notable examples of his buildings in this style were the exuberant Public Trust Building (1908) and more restrained Parliament Buildings (1912-22).
The Central Police Station was designed to resemble a Roman palazzo, and the style was possibly chosen to “stand as a civic exemplum, expressing the probity and dignity of the Law.” The Waring Taylor and Johnston Street facades are near-identical, with some minor variations to the detail of the hood mouldings over the windows; the number and placement of windows and door openings on the ground floor; and the design of the central colonnade.
The ground floor and first floor elevations on both facades are heavily rusticated, and the doors and windows on the ground floor are recessed into semi-circular segmented arched openings, with a voussoir detail, all formed in render to resemble stone. The windows on the second floor are plain and square headed. The dominant feature of the third and fourth floors was the central colonnade of rendered Tuscan pilasters that once stood in strong contrast to the pressed red facing brick of the external walls. Unfortunately the prominence of the colonnade was somewhat diminished by the decision to paint the brickwork at some time in the mid 1990s.
The colonnade projects forward onto a stylised corbelled plinth, and rises two storeys to the plain (1942) cornice. The windows hoods between third and fourth floor are interesting for their unusual stylised “Union Jack” and paterae (flat circular ornaments).
The façades are modelled in strong relief, and their regular, symmetrical design gave the building an appearance of “strength and regularity” that suit its original use as a police station. Unfortunately, the building has been compromised by the alterations of the 1990s, most of which are irreversible.
Note: The physical description is based on ‘Statement of Evidence by Chris Oarsman at the request of the NZHPT and the Wellington District Committee of the Trust to a Resource Consent Application by Norseman Pacific Limited.’ undated but assumed c.1992.
