50 Logan Park Drive, North Dunedin, North Dunedin, Dunedin City
The home of Sport Otago is the natural, historic and actual home of Sport in Otago.
A massive complex of sporting facilities across the road from Forsyth Barr Stadium incorporates Caledonian Ground (known as The Caley) which moved back here in 2000 after 124 years in South Dunedin, minus it's fabulous but aged grandstand.
The Logan Park location has attracted an increasing number of Regional sporting bodies since it was chosen by Council in the 1950s, proportionate to the slow decline of the South Dunedin site which has become a carpark.
Otago Rugby Football Association made their home here and have been joined by most of the regions sporting bodies, like Hockey and Tennis Otago, and several University sports organisations. University Oval has become the most well known, for hosting cricket Internationals, and has an historic and comfortable grandstand, designed in 1930 by Dunedin Architect Edward Anscombe.
The heart of the complex is the historic Sargood Centre, which was subject to an expansion and makeover project in 2012, converting what was a defunct Public Art Gallery into a functional sports centre for Otago Polytech and Sport Otago. Not only did the Sargood family buy the building for the City Council in 1927, they also funded the Sargood sculpture wing in 1951 and then the 2012 revival and re-purposing.
When it was designed, also byAnscombe, for the 1925 New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in Dunedin, the gallery was his masterpiece. The entire exhibition was Anscombe's idea, and this building was ahead of it's time for providing skylights and natural light filtered through reflective baffles to the interior of the galleries. New Zealand architectural guru of the time Samuel Hurst Seagar was impressed and offered his praise.
Unfortunately the community didn't comprehend the building or show sufficient respect for it during the years that it served as the city's art gallery, and it was eaten away to make space for the University Oval sports facility. The 2012 resurrection saw it take on a different purpose and form, but at least preserved some of Anscombe's work.
Image Credit: Logan Park 1955, White's Aviation, National Library of New Zealand
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