Louis Salmond

James Louis Salmond was an English-born architect active in New Zealand. Born in North Shields in 1868 the son of the Reverend Dr William Salmond he emigrated as a child with his family when his father was appointed the first Professor of Theology at the Theological Hall in Dunedin. He attended Otago Boys' High School and was articled to R.A. Lawson where he was working in 1888. Through that association he met the artist George O'Brien and left an impression of him. He went into practice on his own account but later formed a partnership with Lawson when the latter returned to Dunedin in 1900. The practice later became Salmond and Vanes.

Salmond designed more than twenty churches in Otago including the Presbyterian churches at Roslyn, Kaikorai and Waikouaiti. He also designed the terrace houses on upper Stuart Street and Moray Place in Dunedin, the Bristol Piano Company building and the Queens Buildings both on Princes Street and the first Dental School building for the University of Otago now part of its Clocktower complex. (University of Otago Clocktower complex) He was also responsible for work on Knox College (Knox College, Otago) and designed the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva in Fiji. There were also many domestic commissions.

Salmond's work is sober and solid. He used several of the revived styles current at the time, including the Gothic, the Classical and the Baroque, the latter in the Bristol Piano Company building. What his buildings lack in flamboyance they make up in good proportions, sound construction and dignity. Salmond's son Arthur Louis Salmond (1906-1994) went into partnership with him. He died in 1950. A number of his close relations had distinguished careers, some in Law and Theology.

Sources

Entwisle, Peter, William Mathew Hodgkins & his Circle, Dunedin Public Art Gallery,Dunedin, 1984. Knight, Hardwicke & Wales, Niel, Buildings of Dunedin, John McIndoe Limited, Dunedin, 1988. Salmond, AJ, Knox College Conservation Plan 2004, Salmond Anderson Ltd, Dunedin, 2003, pp.13-14.