Auckland War Memorial Museum

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Entrance portal of the Auckland War Memorial Museum

The Auckland War Memorial Museum , or Auckland Museum ( Māori : Tamaki Paenga Hira ), is the largest cultural, historical and natural history museum in Auckland , New Zealand . It is classified as a top class cultural monument by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust .

history

Model of the museum building - extensions from 1950 and 2000 in gray at the top right

It was founded in 1852, making it the oldest museum in the country. The first museum building was a two-room farmhouse in Grafton, a suburb of Auckland. In 1869 the museum received a new building in downtown Auckland. There, Paul Gauguin , among others, visited the collection, sketched some Māori artefacts, which he later reproduced in some of his paintings.

After the First World War , the plan to build a new museum building merged with the need for a memorial for those involved in the war. The building project was advertised internationally in an architectural competition, which was won by the Auckland office Grierson, Aimer and Draffin, who executed the current museum building in neoclassical style. Located in the Auckland Domain , on top of a grassy hill, a dormant volcano , it was inaugurated on November 28, 1929. The museum was structurally expanded twice in the south: 1950 and 2000. Until around mid-2020, several areas of the museum will be rebuilt again.

Collections

War memorial
License plate of the locomotive of the train that crashed in the Tangiwai railway accident in 1953 after a volcanic eruption through a lahar

The museum has significant collections, particularly on the history of New Zealand , the Māori culture and the cultures of the Pacific region. The collections include three complete wooden buildings, including the Hotunui , a traditional Māori meeting house from 1878 from the Thames region, and the war canoe ( waka ) Te Toki a Tapiri from 1830.

There are also historical and handicraft collections and an art collection . The arts and crafts collection is the largest in New Zealand. The museum preserves the estate of Sir Edmund Hillary , the first to climb Mount Everest .

The museum's natural history collection is also important with 1.5 million objects from fauna , botany , entomology and geology . One focus of the exhibition is the danger of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, especially in Auckland Bay. A simulation shows the eruption of a volcano and earthquake in Auckland Bay, which visitors experience from a replica living room of a bungalow in Auckland, including the shock waves triggered by the earthquake .

The museum's library is one of the three largest in New Zealand's history, with a photo collection comprising 1.2 million recordings.

Over a million items from the collections have now been digitized and viewed online. This online library is updated regularly.

The museum is also the central war memorial for the province of Auckland. It also shows an extensive exhibition on the New Zealand Wars , internal colonial wars in the 19th century and on the international military conflicts in which New Zealand took part.

The museum work is supervised by 100 full-time employees and 200 volunteers .

Visitors

Every year the museum has around half a million visitors, including around 60,000 school children. It is one of the most visited cultural institutions in New Zealand.

Web links

Commons : Auckland War Memorial Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information about the museum (Engl.)
  2. ↑ Construction work in the museum. Accessed August 26, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Collection on the museum homepage .
  4. ↑ Online library of the museum. Accessed August 26, 2019 .

Coordinates: 36 ° 51 ′ 38.3 ″  S , 174 ° 46 ′ 40.1 ″  E