Daily Photo – Queen Street in Auckland

On a drizzly afternoon on Queen Street, I found myself standing in front of a rather wonderful reminder that Auckland wasn’t always made of glass, steel and buildings that look as though they were designed by the same person.

The Guardian building sits among the modern towers of the CBD, an ornate survivor from another Auckland, when buildings were built from completely different materials. Its neo-Renaissance façade is covered in the sort of detail that seems increasingly rare these days, from the grand columns of the entrance to the rather splendid copper-clad clock that hangs above the street. Once the home of the Auckland Stock Exchange, and the New Zealand Insurance Company’s administration, the only housing in the building was the caretaker’s flat on the eighth floor. 

In the wet, the building seemed to take on an entirely different character. The rain-darkened pavement reflected the grey sky and the facade, softening the whole scene and making it look even more like a survivor from another time.