A crack within the façade

Ko te Awa te mātāpuna o te ora. The river is the supply of non secular 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 sort of non secular kai. The Sarjeant Gallery story is already epic, infusing Aotearoa New Zealand cultural and architectural historical past with generosity, high quality and intrigue. Vital to this story had 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 underneath the auspices of Edmund Anscombe was attributed to his articled pupil Donald Hosie. Since 1919, the white Ōamaru Stone gallery has neglected 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 collection of chic, naturally backlit gallery areas, culminating in a central dome gallery, the point of interest of the design and the setting for a lot of an incredible story.¹

In an echo via historical past, in 1995, my observe consulted to Whanganui District Council, recommending {that a} cultural heritage research of the present constructing and an addition to the gallery happen, and that an open architectural competitors be undertaken because the means to understand the challenge.² The competitors happened in 1999 and was gained 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 Struggle Memorial Corridor’s formal language, the profitable submission was an excellent contextual, minimalist design that did lots with a little bit, exhibiting a uncommon architectural humility and deference to the unique work. This tactic, and the destructive house between the present and the brand new, created necessary house for dialogue that remained vital 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 via 55 units of arms at WAM, with the same stage of turnover inside the shopper 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 exhibits he was extra astute than his strategy advised, appropriately 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 price. At present, the gallery stays as stunning and gorgeous 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 implausible from the brand new gallery processional western strategy. Much less nice for the present constructing and its relationship to its panorama is the lodging of the very in depth companies. They occupy the entire authentic 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 conceal an incredible deal. The planning is cleaned up, with no hint of a makeshift stair that after 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 operate however, sadly, now with restricted public entry and crammed filled with dexion library shelving. Hopefully, this may change over time, significantly with the extent of latest space for storing created within the modern Pātaka Gallery addition.

The uncommon readability of the competitors design considering 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 a 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 At present, WAM has an in-house cultural design crew however the brand new gallery challenge predated this, making a problem: “How can we affect the constructing, although it’s underneath development?”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 underneath the steerage of kaumātua Uncle John Maihi. The will 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 increasing views to the Whanganui awa and its supply, Ruapehu maunga. The distinctive visible languages of the river, resembling kānapanapa – the shifting mild reflecting off the waters – grew to become 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 stunning expression within the gorgeous 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 chic second, as a brand new river of individuals flows underneath and into the gallery. The unique competitors design parti informs the planning and cross-section. An enormous basement stage with very modern assortment storage and servicing areas is buried beneath a glazed, visually open floor stage, with fundamental entry, reception, store and café, operate 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 setting. It accommodates modern rectangular exhibition areas of various scales, and training 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 previous. The axis visually hyperlinks the previous and new inside areas via the unique galleries and the central dome, over the entry destructive house, via new central higher galleries, and out to the glass field and panorama past. Sensible! The structural and companies integration wrestle is dealt with properly for essentially the most half however is seen from the doorway house between new and previous.

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 identification. The duality additionally displays the architectural expression of the new-old hybrid gallery: a spot of dialogue reflecting its individuals 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 wonderful early historical past of the gallery and its key tales.}

^{2 Architects Southcombe McClean and Co and McGregor Consulting Group, The Queens Park Lodging Examine, 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.}