Latest news with #MāoriCourt
RNZ News
10-08-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Sinking millions into Auckland's heritage buildings
Auckland Museum's latest exhibition DIVA celebrates the figures that have defined generations in music, fashion, and performance. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly The discovery of deadly abestos dust at Auckland Museum has thrown its $40 million centenary year plans up in the air as it grapples with the hefty costs of losing visitors and making the building secure. The museum is now partly open after three weeks of full closure and many of the exhibition rooms on the north side will reopen in October. But the big drawcard for international tourists - the Māori Court - will stay closed indefinitely as experts work through the delicate job of getting the asbestos out of the ceiling. The problem has hit takings at the museum hard, with June visitor numbers nearly half of projections of 18,000 a week, and July down by more than a third on expectations. Chief executive David Reeves tells The Detail he does not know where the money will come from to cover the millions of dollars in losses and the cost of removing the asbestos. "It's a pretty serious matter. Over the last few years we've spent down our reserves, we've redeveloped the building. It's a tricky situation and the museum board are really quite concerned about it," Reeves says. Clearing the microscopic fibres will drag on the museum for years and Reeves says the $30-$40 million planned spend on the centennary celebrations in 2029 is looking uncertain, while other projects are also under review. "It's a terrible thing that the museum board and the executives have been handed," says Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy. "They've been, out of nowhere, almost crippled in their business and their vision for the museum by asbestos dust that as it turns out is the byproduct of a poorly done renovation of decades ago where material was just left behind." Instead of the usual throng of visitors in the grand foyer and Māori Court at the museum's northern end, it is full of pipes, tubes and pumps and just a few key workers. Asbestos experts have assessed the best ways to remove the dust, which is not only in the roof cavity above the court, but on some artefacts. One possible option of lifting the roof off the museum to extract it has been eliminated, says Reeves. But getting to the source of the asbestos in the void above the court's curved glass ceiling is difficult because the space is too small for people. The likely option is that workers will take out the ornate heritage ceiling in sections but only after they have removed the precious artefacts underneath. Reeves calls the problem an octopus with more than eight tentacles. "We'll get there," he says. "Unfortunately at great cost." Contrast that with another historic Auckland building, St James Theatre off Queen Street where restoration work will start next month, with the help of $30 million in government and Auckland Council funding, after lying derelict for more than a decade. "That beautiful old theatre that three times hosted Queen Elizabeth on her royal visits and was a fantastic centrepiece for performance, music, theatre productions and cinema for years and generations will be restored," Murphy says. The funds were allocated by previous council and government and the money finally landed just weeks ago and reluctantly handed over by the current council and government. Whether Auckland needs another venue in its arts precinct on Queen Street is another question. Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here . You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter .
1News
26-06-2025
- General
- 1News
Auckland museum's Māori, Pacific galleries may be closed until 2029
The Auckland War Memorial Museum's Māori and Pacific galleries could remain closed until 2029. The museum was planning a major redevelopment for its centenary, which would revitalise much of the original 1929 building. That redevelopment was expected to run from about 2026 to 2029, but the discovery of asbestos in May of 2025 had complicated those plans. "The discovery happened because we started doing some scoping around what state the air conditioning systems were in, and we went up into the ceiling and that's when they discovered the remnants of a previous removal effort in the 1980s," museum director David Reeves said. The majority of the museum was reopened on June 3, and more galleries were set to reopen by the end of the year, but Reeves said the original 1929 foyer and connecting Māori Court and Pacific galleries would take a lot longer to reopen. ADVERTISEMENT "The Māori Court is a complex job because we're dealing with a glass ceiling, heritage architecture and spaces which are really inaccessible and difficult to get to," he said. "That could be up to 12 months to remedy that, by which time we're probably looking at when we might have had to close anyway for the centenary redevelopment. These two things have ended up colliding." The centenary redevelopment would be "substantial," Reeves said, and require the Māori Court to remain closed for about three years, although he noted the museum hadn't finished scoping that project. "Our desire is spruce up and make good some of the heritage architecture from 1929, there's renewal of air conditioning, electrics, lighting and things, and there's the renewal of the narratives, the displays, the interpretation of our world class Pacific and Māori collections," Reeves explained. Reeves hoped the asbestos clean-up would be finished sooner, but said it was possible the current closure could lead right into the next. "It is possible things might be closed until 2029, but we don't have the full information and the decisions on that yet," he said.
