Bay Harbour: October 14, 2020

Wednesday October 14 2020
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
BAY HARBOUR
PAGE 25
CONTENT MARKETING
Museum Unveils Concept Designs
for Proposed Redevelopment
Canterbury Museum has released concept designs for its $195 million
proposed redevelopment, which celebrate and reveal more of the
Museum’s heritage buildings, provide twenty-first century visitor facilities
and meet the exhibition and storage needs of a modern museum.
Canterbury Museum Director Anthony
Wright says that the Museum has
listened very carefully to the feedback it
has received so far.
He says that Athfield Architects
have captured all of the feedback in
the proposed concept designs, while
maintaining the much-loved intimate
feel of the Museum. “The design
increases the sense of discovery, surprise
and the feeling of never being quite sure
of what’s around the corner. However the
way people move through the Museum
will definitely be improved.
“We will be bringing back the blue
whale skeleton has not been on public
display for 26 years. The 26.5 metre
skeleton will be a focal point in the
Museum, suspended in a new central
full-height glass roofed atrium,” says Mr
Wright. “We are also looking forward to
developing a new, expanded Antarctic
exhibition.”
Canterbury Museum Chair David
Ayers says, “The brief we provided
Athfield Architects was quite
challenging.”
“We want the proposed redevelopment
to enhance and celebrate our history by
unveiling heritage fabric that has been
hidden for many years. The concepts
have more than met our expectations
and we’re looking forward to hearing
what the Canterbury community thinks.”
Welcoming Space: The Museum is
working closely with Ngāi Tūāhuriri on
the concept designs. Puamiria Parata-
Goodall, Kaiurungi (Chair) of the
Museum’s Ōhākī o Ngā Tīpuna says.
“At the heart of the new Museum is a
new space called Araiteuru, housed in
the central full-height atrium. Araiteuru
celebrates the importance of how we
welcome people to the Museum and this
is where we will tell the story of mana
whenua and tangata whenua through
a mix of contemporary and traditional
methods.”
Araiteuru will be home to a new
contemporary whare – a ceremonial and
educational space. The Whare Whakairo
(carved meeting house) Hau Te Ananui
O Tangaroa, a taonga that hasn’t been on
display for 64 years, will also hold pride
of place in Araiteuru.
The concept designs propose that
the walls on the northern sides of the
original Benjamin Mountfort-designed
buildings will be revealed and original
exterior elements, including the flèche
(slender roof-top spire) on the Rolleston
Avenue façade, will be reinstated.
A new three-storey building, within
the height limits of the Rolleston Avenue
roof line, would wrap around the north
side of the heritage buildings, exposing
their heritage walls to public view. The
building would include mezzanine floors,
multifunctional spaces such as a new
lecture theatre and increased space for
permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Base isolation would be added across the
site to protect the heritage buildings and
the collections, and to bring the site up to
100% of Building Code. New collection
storage would be created as part of this.
A key element of the concept design
is a second Rolleston Avenue entrance.
The current entry to the Museum is too
small to be the only entrance, and with
more than 750,000 visitors a year and
rising, an additional entrance will reduce
congestion and improve the flow of
visitors into the building. This entry will
also house a cafe with sidewalk seating.
Heritage architecture expert Jim
Gard’ner says the concept design for the
Rolleston Avenue facade respects and
celebrates the Gothic Revival language
of Benjamin Mountfort. “The additions
to the Museum and planned central
circulation patterns are informed by
Mountfort’s original unrealised plans and
ideas for the extension of the Museum.
“The proposed additional entrance
on Rolleston Avenue will have three
openings into a covered portico. This
draws on the typical tripartite form
commonly found in Gothic Revival
architecture, including the 1878 porch of
the existing entrance to the Museum, key
entrances within the Arts Centre, and
the porch of Christ Church Cathedral,”
says Mr Gard’ner.
Floor to ceiling glass will be added to
part of two floors of the Roger Duff Wing
which will house a split-level family
cafe alongside Discovery, the Museum’s
natural history centre for children.
You can see the concept designs and
give feedback at the Museum or online
at www.canterburymuseum.com.
Feedback on the concept designs closes
on 23 October.