A crack in the façade

Ko te Awa te mātāpuna o te ora. The river is the supply of religious and bodily sustenance. Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery Te Pātaka o Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa celebrates provision for the Arts as a kind of religious kai. The Sarjeant Gallery story is already epic, infusing Aotearoa New Zealand cultural and architectural historical past with generosity, high quality and intrigue. Necessary to this story have been the 1916 Samuel Hurst Seager session on the Queen’s Park Civic Precinct planning, the highest facet lighting of museums and galleries, and the unique open architectural competitors.

The excellent neoclassical design submitted below the auspices of Edmund Anscombe was attributed to his articled pupil Donald Hosie. Since 1919, the white Ōamaru Stone gallery has ignored the awa from its Pukenamu Queen’s Park web site, glistening and reflecting the sunshine: a pure architectural object within the panorama. A dome softens the silhouette and fantastically proportioned exterior niches carve out hole house for the visible and sculptural arts. The inside is as sturdy, with an interconnected sequence of elegant, naturally backlit gallery areas, culminating in a central dome gallery, the focus of the design and the setting for a lot of an awesome story.1

In an echo by way of historical past, in 1995, my apply consulted to Whanganui District Council, recommending {that a} cultural heritage examine of the present constructing and an addition to the gallery happen, and that an open architectural competitors be undertaken because the means to grasp the challenge.2 The competitors befell in 1999 and was received by Steve McCracken of Warren and Mahoney (WAM), in a design described by the jury as deceptively easy and understated. Influenced by the present gallery and the Whanganui Battle Memorial Corridor’s formal language, the profitable submission was an excellent contextual, minimalist design that did loads with a bit, exhibiting a uncommon architectural humility and deference to the unique work. This tactic, and the damaging house between the present and the brand new, created necessary house for dialogue that remained essential all through the challenge’s lengthy growth.

There was a 25-year gestation interval earlier than the competitors design was realised. Over this time, the challenge handed by way of 55 units of arms at WAM, with the same stage of turnover inside the consumer teams and stakeholders.3 A low second occurred in 2004, when mayor Michael Legal guidelines canned the challenge and long-standing gallery director Invoice Milbank left quickly after. Legal guidelines appeared to take enjoyment of baiting the native arts group however time reveals he was extra astute than his method advised, accurately figuring out that there was no funding allotted to strengthen the present constructing. In 2014, the gallery constructing was closed to the general public after being assessed at 5 per cent of present earthquake codes. It was not till 2020 that the gallery strengthening, reconstruction and new constructing challenge commenced on web site, and it reopened in late 2024.

The complexity and problem of regenerating the unique constructing took round half of the $70-million-dollar challenge value. In the present day, the gallery stays as lovely and beautiful because it has at all times been, in and out. The outside surfaces are cleaned of detritus, and a clunky entry ramp to the constructing entrance and concrete plant room addition to the north-west have been erased. That is unbelievable from the brand new gallery processional western method. Much less nice for the present constructing and its relationship to its panorama is the lodging of the very intensive providers. They occupy the entire unique basement space and a big new plant room addition on the east of the unique gallery. From the inside, you must look laborious to search out how strengthening and servicing have occurred. Modernist-era floating exhibition gallery wall layers are retained inside the classical shell and these disguise an awesome deal. The planning is cleaned up, with no hint of a makeshift stair that when terminated the western gallery. The unique entrance and the 2 galleries on the southern facet are restored. The petite, fantastically lit Miniature Gallery areas stay with an Arts Library perform however, sadly, now with restricted public entry and crammed stuffed with dexion library shelving. Hopefully, this may change over time, significantly with the extent of latest cupboard space created within the up to date Pātaka Gallery addition.

The uncommon readability of the competitors design pondering guided the brand new works as change was wanted: “The design needs to be quite simple and comply with the order of the unique constructing, and it should look to the Awa and Maunga.”4 Aotearoa New Zealand within the twenty first century is completely different from the way in which it was in 1999 and really completely different from that of 1916. “There isn’t any Māori custom represented on this home of artwork, not even among the many minor orders. Inside the ornament of the Sarjeant, we discover union jacks and oak leaves.”5 In the present day, WAM has an in-house cultural design crew however the brand new gallery challenge predated this, making a problem: “How will we affect the constructing, though it’s below building?”6 This was answered by an prolonged co-design course of with Whanganui River iwi, represented by a bunch of artists appointed by Te Rūnanga o Tūpoho, a collective of hapū from the decrease reaches of the Whanganui River and led by artist Cecelia Kumeroa below the steerage of kaumātua Uncle John Maihi. The need to advance a major native expression and issues with the Ōamaru Stone provide converged, creating alternative to reconceive a brand new gallery narrative. This bolstered the worth of the axial planning and of the creation of ‘a crack within the façade’, and a culminating second on the spatial development: a suspended glass field opening the gallery and lengthening views to the Whanganui awa and its supply, Ruapehu maunga. The distinctive visible languages of the river, similar to kānapanapa – the shifting gentle reflecting off the waters – turned a key new idea. The blackness of Whanganui carving and pakohe, a uncommon, native black greenstone, are among the many different layered narratives.

These concepts discover lovely expression within the beautiful reflective black stone façade, highlighted by tioata inserts: splashes of metal that summary the impact of sunshine shimmering on the water. The narratives additionally knowledgeable the design of tiling for flooring, the entry mahau and the waka bridge. An ethereal reflective underside of the entry mahau is a very elegant second, as a brand new river of individuals flows below and into the gallery. The unique competitors design parti informs the planning and cross-section. An enormous basement stage with very up to date assortment storage and servicing areas is buried under a glazed, visually open floor stage, with principal entry, reception, store and café, perform and lecture rooms, and workers and assembly rooms. That is topped with an higher stage, clad in reflective black stone, raised on piloti and largely separated from the exterior surroundings. It incorporates up to date rectangular exhibition areas of various scales, and schooling areas. These neutral-volume, super-flexible, well-serviced gallery areas are already a delight to curator Andrew Clifford and artists exhibiting.

Refreshingly easy axial circulation connects the degrees of the brand new gallery and extends the unique metropolis and Sarjeant north/south axis through a black waka bridge over the entry house between new and outdated. The axis visually hyperlinks the outdated and new inside areas by way of the unique galleries and the central dome, over the entry damaging house, by way of new central higher galleries, and out to the glass field and panorama past. Sensible! The structural and providers integration battle is dealt with properly for probably the most half however is seen from the doorway house between new and outdated.

The Gallery is an object within the spherical inside Pukenamu Queen’s Park, with a now-disrupted panorama context on some sides and a well-integrated new panorama from the west, framed fantastically by an present avenue of Phoenix palms. Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery Te Pātaka o Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa has come of age. This begins with the extra inclusive bicultural id. The duality additionally displays the architectural expression of the new-old hybrid gallery: a spot of dialogue reflecting its folks and tales, and belonging to its place.

References

1 Martin Edmond, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A Whanganui Biography, Massey College Press, 2024, has a superb early historical past of the gallery and its key tales.

2 Architects Southcombe McClean and Co and McGregor Consulting Group, The Queens Park Lodging Research, September 1995, p. 52 and p. 76, and Strategic Panorama Plan.

3 Ralph Roberts, kōrero between Ralph Roberts, Cecelia Kumeroa, Andrew Clifford and Mark Southcombe, Sarjeant Gallery, 27 January 2025.

4 Ralph Roberts, kōrero between Ralph Roberts, Cecelia Kumeroa, Andrew Clifford and Mark Southcombe, Sarjeant Gallery, 27 January 2025. 

5 Mark Southcombe, ‘The Wrestler’s Ball’, Artwork New Zealand 72, Spring 1994, pp. 54–56.

6 ‘Delicate Simplicity’, Structure NZ, March/April 2000, pp. 72–81.