Napier's Art Deco Trust moves house to War Memorial Women's Rest rooms
It was partly damaged in the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake, repaired, renovated in the 1990s (having become also a community and social services hub), and closed in 2013, amid failed seismic risk assessment.
Designed on a cross footprint by architect Louis Hay, it attracted category 1 heritage status and, in deciding what to do with the building, owners the Napier City Council in 2021 budgeted $750,000 for restoration on the basis it would be used for community purposes.
It led to a partnership with the Art Deco Trust, which, with former mayor Barbara Arnott in the chair, found grant funding, sponsorship and support 'in kind', together estimated to be worth over $1 million, and renovation started 12 months ago.
Trust general manager Jeremy Smith said that, during restoration, original plaster finishes and panelling were uncovered, along with a hand-painted Red Cross sign, probably from a post-earthquake first aid station.
Repairs over the years had included whatever materials were at hand, including kerosene tins as boxing for concrete piles, and a chimney and fireplace had been filled in with concrete.
'It's a story of practical solutions and layered history,' Smith said.
'This is what it would be like if Louis Hay were building it today,' Arnott said.
Smith believes the Clive and Memorial squares are 'an emerging part of town', with the restoration in keeping with the trust's ideals.
'We're guardians of Napier's architectural story,' he said. 'Every visitor we welcome, every review we receive, supports the work of keeping that story alive.'
The new centre will accommodate tours and has community use and heritage education space, with such facilities as the North Room and the main hall, restored as much as possible to original, in addition to the trust's own retail and exhibit space.
The heritage nature of the building has sparked questions about what Art Deco Centre signage would be appropriate, with the Women's Rest opening day plaque still in place.
Doug Laing has been a reporter for more 52 years, more than 40 of them in Hawke's Bay, at the Central Hawke's Bay Press, the Napier Daily Telegraph and, Hawke's Bay Today, since its establishment in 1999. He has covered most aspects of general news and sport.
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NZ Herald
19 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Napier's Art Deco Trust moves house to War Memorial Women's Rest rooms
The Women's Rest opened in 1926, named as a memorial to those who perished in World War I (1914-18) but for use mainly by women in town, including toilets, a Plunket room and facilities for mums and babies. It was partly damaged in the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake, repaired, renovated in the 1990s (having become also a community and social services hub), and closed in 2013, amid failed seismic risk assessment. Designed on a cross footprint by architect Louis Hay, it attracted category 1 heritage status and, in deciding what to do with the building, owners the Napier City Council in 2021 budgeted $750,000 for restoration on the basis it would be used for community purposes. It led to a partnership with the Art Deco Trust, which, with former mayor Barbara Arnott in the chair, found grant funding, sponsorship and support 'in kind', together estimated to be worth over $1 million, and renovation started 12 months ago. Trust general manager Jeremy Smith said that, during restoration, original plaster finishes and panelling were uncovered, along with a hand-painted Red Cross sign, probably from a post-earthquake first aid station. Repairs over the years had included whatever materials were at hand, including kerosene tins as boxing for concrete piles, and a chimney and fireplace had been filled in with concrete. 'It's a story of practical solutions and layered history,' Smith said. 'This is what it would be like if Louis Hay were building it today,' Arnott said. Smith believes the Clive and Memorial squares are 'an emerging part of town', with the restoration in keeping with the trust's ideals. 'We're guardians of Napier's architectural story,' he said. 'Every visitor we welcome, every review we receive, supports the work of keeping that story alive.' The new centre will accommodate tours and has community use and heritage education space, with such facilities as the North Room and the main hall, restored as much as possible to original, in addition to the trust's own retail and exhibit space. The heritage nature of the building has sparked questions about what Art Deco Centre signage would be appropriate, with the Women's Rest opening day plaque still in place. Doug Laing has been a reporter for more 52 years, more than 40 of them in Hawke's Bay, at the Central Hawke's Bay Press, the Napier Daily Telegraph and, Hawke's Bay Today, since its establishment in 1999. He has covered most aspects of general news and sport.
RNZ News
28-07-2025
- RNZ News
More women living without shelter in Aotearoa
Lisamaree Peerdemen has just got her first home after 18 months of living under a bridge, and most of her life on the streets. Photo: RNZ / Amy Williams There is a disproportionately high rate of women without shelter in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, people working with the homeless are warning. Auckland Council's Community Committee will meet to discuss the region's homelessness crisis tomorrow , as well as a report showing the number of homeless people rose to 809 in May this year - a 90 percent increase since last September. Lisamaree Peerdeman moved into state housing this month after living under a bridge in Auckland's city centre on-and-off most of her life. "I've just got my first home after 18 months of living under the bridge. I had my four bedroom household lot under there, set up like a house just no walls, but I could light my fire and that's what made me feel like home." Having been homeless for decades, she has noticed there are now more women sleeping rough and it concerns her. "Terrible increase in wahine and they're all old school and if they're not old school, they're young. They're beaten children, accused and abused. Their home environment behind the doors is not good." She keeps an eye out for the young women on the street and makes sure outreach teams working with the city's homeless know they are there. Peerdeman pops into Manaaki Tangata most days - it is a wellbeing space in downtown Auckland that the Māori wardens run under the stewardship of Matarora Smith. There is a washing machine and shower and the wardens provide plates of hot food - something Peerdeman said helped her budget now that she was paying rent. "I'm $120 a week now after I pay my rent, power and gas and if it wasn't for nanny Matarora and the women's yard I'd be really in trouble. Not really though, because I'm the one that will tell you which bins to go to to get your kai." The wellbeing space is among the initiatives funded by Auckland Council - a snippet of its half a million dollar annual spend on groups supporting the city's homeless. Research by the Coalition to End Women's Homelessness late last year found 46 percent of women suffering homelessness in New Zealand live in Auckland. Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson will talk to tomorrow's committee meeting as a representative of the coalition. Auckland councillor Angela Dalton chairs the community Committee, which on Tuesday will discuss the latest numbers showing a 90 percent increase in those sleeping rough in Auckland since September last year. This followed the release of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development's latest Homelessness Insights Report , which showed some of the 14 percent of people leaving emergency housing may be homeless. "There will be an inequity in the money that is being invested at this point in time so I would like to know what is it that council can contribute to, that will make a real change or a shift for women who are struggling to find a safe place to live." Another woman who is homeless in Auckland, whom RNZ agreed not to name, said the street is no place for women. She said the car she was living in was stolen a few weeks ago and she does not feel safe sleeping rough. "I feel so sorry for the females because there is no place for the females in this, the males can look after themselves - we can't, we're vulnerable. I've been through 17 years of domestic violence and I'm still going." New to Auckland, she said there are women on the street who need help. "I've only met a few women on the street I don't know how many women there are on the street but the women I have seen on the street they seem to like it, they know what they want. It's up to them if they want the help, but I know there are women out there that need the help." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
25-07-2025
- NZ Herald
Auckland Museum's extraordinary origin story emerges from the archives
Next week marks the centenary of a public ceremony held at the museum's construction site on August 1, 1925, to mark the laying of its foundation stone. The polished block of blue pearl granite sits on the northeast corner of the building, with flecks of crystal that still sparkle when they catch the sun. A time capsule is sealed inside the Auckland Museum's glittering foundation stone, at the northwest corner of the building. Photo / Michael Craig It would be a further four years before the doors opened, but for Pia Gahagan, collection manager for the museum archives (documentary heritage), marking that early milestone was the equivalent of throwing a roof shout. 'When my partner and I built our house, the builders were like, 'You have to put on a roof shout'. I didn't know what that was,' she says. 'Then I thought, 'Yeah, I get it. You know, the roof's up and we're rocking now.' I see the laying of the foundation stone as kind of similar to that. It's really happening, so let's get this thing done.' For the past two years, Gahagan has been trawling through the archives, gathering material in preparation for the museum's official centenary in 1929. Items she's uncovered include the original design drawings by Auckland architectural firm Grierson, Aimer and Draffin, and a working set of plans – dirt-stained and scuffed from being handled on the building site. An Auckland War Memorial and Museum Competition drawing from 1922 by architectural firm Grierson, Aimer and Draffin. Their concept was chosen from the 74 entries, although changes were made to the final design. Photo / Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Minutes from meetings held by the Auckland Provincial War Memorial Fund Committee also provided a rich source of information – the citizens of Auckland provided much of the project's financial backing – and a scrapbook was kept of newspaper articles from the time. Recognising the significance of the foundation stone, Gahagan dug a little deeper into that side of the story, which began to take on a life of its own. 'Piecing it together, I realised this was quite a significant moment in the museum's history, acknowledging the masses of work that had gone into getting to this point.' Founded in 1852 in a local farmhouse, the Auckland Museum had rapidly expanded and was bursting at the seams. Thomas Cheeseman, its first professional curator, lobbied for the construction of a new building to 'serve for the recreation, instruction and intellectual advancement of the people of Auckland'. It was eventually decided to erect a combined museum and war memorial, commemorating those who had lost their lives in World War I. An international design competition was held, attracting 74 entries from as far afield as the United States, Japan and India. The proposals, responding to a detailed brief, were put on public display in a shed down at the wharf. Construction work began on Auckland's new museum in 1924 and was completed five years later. Photos / Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Construction of the neoclassical monument that stands on the hilltop today, with its towering Greek Doric columns, began in mid-1924. By then, a public fundraising campaign had reached its target of £200,000, after an initial Government investment of £25,000. It's almost impossible to imagine what the Auckland Domain (Pukekawa) would have looked like back then. Before construction began on Observatory Hill, the bare grassy slopes were carpeted in daisies, with a clear view across to the University of Auckland, which is now obscured by mature trees. By 1925, the flattened hilltop was a working construction site with a service road, a huge stoneyard and a collection of workers' sheds. Excavation work required the removal of more than 13,000 cubic tonnes of earth, and 8000 tonnes of concrete were used in the foundations. A provision of the contract required all the stonework to be done on site, a deliberate strategy to generate employment opportunities for Aucklanders as the post-war boom began to stutter. 'They wanted to make sure it was safeguarded for local people to do that work,' says Gahagan. 'There are some descriptions in the papers about different machinery they had on site, including a machine with diamond teeth that cut the stone. I think a lot of it was quite new and hadn't really been seen or used in New Zealand before.' From the base of the structure itself, reinforced steel girders rose from a slab of Coromandel granite – 'sufficiently advanced to enable one to realise what a very noble building it would be', according to a newspaper report of the foundation stone ceremony that Gahagan found in the digital archive Papers Past. The superstructure was later constructed from Portland stone, imported from England after problems with the initial supplier in Australia caused delays. A pictorial record of the Foundation Stone Ceremony, published in the New Zealand Sporting and Dramatic Review. Photo / Auckland Libraries A report on the ceremony published in the Auckland Star. Photo / Michael Craig Black and white photographs taken on the day of the ceremony show Prime Minister Gordon Coates, resplendent in a dress suit and top hat, inspecting a guard of honour formed by cadets. A dais overlooking the Waitematā Harbour had been erected for the dignitaries, decorated with bunting that ran all the way down to the Robbie Burns statue so the gathering crowds could see where to go. Among the ephemera Gahagan has collated is a formal invitation to the museum's director, Gilbert Archey, tickets to the ceremony and copies of the official programme. A wooden gavel and silver trowel, presented to Coates in an ornately carved box, were later gifted to the museum by the Prime Minister's family and are kept on display. This presentation set, made by A Kohn Ltd, was gifted to Prime Minister Gordon Coates at the foundation stone ceremony and is on display at the museum. Photo / Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Intriguingly, a time capsule was placed into a cavity cut into the foundation stone, sealed inside a bronze casket. Its contents, however, are disappointingly dour: a copy of the Archdeacon's prayer, a list of subscribers to the museum's building fund, a history of Auckland and the daily newspapers. Auckland Museum's chief executive, David Reeves, has been fascinated by the stories that have emerged from the archives. He sees the foundation stone ceremony as a symbolic moment when the city came of age. 'The fervour around it was part of Auckland's civic pride, that we could build something of this stature. So it was an expression of confidence in ourselves,' he says. 'Thinking back to that era and the enormous grief in the community after World War I, there wouldn't have been a family that wasn't affected in some way, having either lost somebody or having a damaged soldier come back to them. 'The laying of the foundation stone would have been that moment of saying, yes, we're acknowledging that. We're getting on with our lives, but we're not going to forget. So it was literally a concrete way to make a permanent mark that the Great War, as it was then known, would not be forgotten.' The Anzac Day dawn service at the Cenotaph each year marks the dual role performed by the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Photo / Hayden Woodward The museum faces a challenging four years before marking its official centenary in 2029. The recent detection of asbestos at the site of previous remediation work in the 80s – and the wider spread of asbestos dust – has led to the indefinite closure of the Te Marae Atea Māori Court and the Pacific galleries. Two-thirds of the original 1929 building is now open and operating safely, while the northern galleries will need a further eight to 10 weeks of work. Reopening the Māori and Pacific galleries will take 'much, much longer', says Reeves, because of the complicated process required to dismantle parts of the building and properly address the source of the asbestos. The closure of the museum's most popular drawcard has also led to a significant loss of income after a downturn in tourists. 'Aside from the asbestos, we've got some urgent building upgrade needs in that 1929 part of the building. The air conditioning system is on its last legs. We're redoing the lighting so it's energy efficient and in the right place, and trunking fibre optics through. 'Our curatorial team are also looking at what we will do to refresh all of those narratives and displays. The interpretation and the overall thread of it is getting up to 30 years old.' A budget shortfall means fundraising will be required for the upgrade, an issue the trust board will consider when it meets in December. However, Reeves says the museum's programme of touring exhibitions is intact through to 2028. Diva, its current blockbuster from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, opened this month and runs through to October. Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
