The most photographed building in the country is set to get a million-dollar makeover.
Dunedin Railway Station has featured in recent Hollywood blockbusters like The Power of the Dog and now its 115-year-old exterior is in for a $7 million makeover.
"We are doing a complete paint of the whole building and restoring any original timberwork back to the original standard," Naylor Love project director Paul Stevenson told Newshub.
Gutters are being rebuilt, the building is being made waterproof and the distinctive Oamaru stone is in need of repair.
Stevenson said the fish scales they originally started with they are getting replaced with locally hand-crafted copper ones.
The terracotta roof is also getting a new lid with more than 15,000 new tiles brought over from the original factory in France to be used in the restoration.
The work is guided by Salmond Reed Architects, which has renovated and restored Auckland's War Memorial and Civic Theatre.
It's hoped this work will preserve the landmark for the next century.
Dunedin City Council's property services group manager Anna Nilsen said the restoration will be done in three stages.
"It's a three-year programme of work so we've finished stage one, it'll carry on - two more stages - and hopefully be finished August 2023."
The clock tower is also getting a spruce up but that too has been covered.
From the outside, it looks like the railway station is the same as a plastic print-out version of the station has been wrapped around the scaffolding.
"What we wanted to do was tourists to come back to this town and actually see the iconic building rather than just seeing a big white scaffold," Stevenson said.
The station's new and improved look should be ready for even more photographers by 2023.
