Daily Photo: Dunedin’s Changing Streetscape

There is something rather satisfying about a city that manages to embrace the modern world without completely surrendering to it. Dunedin has always struck me as a place that likes its history, even if it occasionally feels the urge to rearrange the furniture.

Here, a contemporary building sits comfortably among the familiar streets, its angled glass and steel giving the impression that someone has arrived from the future with a slightly different set of architectural instructions. It catches the evening light rather nicely, too, which is more than can be said for some buildings that seem to have been designed primarily to discourage people from looking at them.

Dunedin is an interesting mixture of old and new. Grand stone buildings, Victorian shopfronts and more recent additions share the same streets, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes with all the enthusiasm of distant relatives obliged to spend Christmas together.

I rather like that about the place. Cities should be allowed to evolve, even if not every new arrival is greeted with universal applause. Besides, a city that never changes risks becoming little more than an outdoor museum, and Dunedin has far too much life left in it for that.

And so, as the lights come on and the evening traffic rolls past, the city continues doing what it has always done: getting on with things, quietly and without making too much of a fuss.