Heritage et AL

On the last Sunday in September the Awhitu Central Church will celebrate its 140th anniversary. Travellers who pass through Awhitu Central on their way to the Manukau Heads lighthouse will be familiar with this iconic building.   Ref: Bruce Ringer, Awhitu Central Church, 20 August 2017.     The Awhitu Central Church was opened as the Awhitu Presbyterian Church on 23 September 1877 (in accordance with the wishes of the donor of the land, George Garland, it also accommodated both Anglican and Methodist congregations). It is today the last active church of four Presbyterian churches which were opened on the Manukau Peninsula during the 19th century, although two other equally picturesque buildings survive. When the Awhitu church opened there were already two Presbyterian churches in the nearby Pollok settlement. One had been opened by members of the Scotch Presbyterian Church on 22 May 1870, the other by members of the Church of Scotland on 14 June 1870. The fo...

One of New Zealand’s most highly respected abstract artists, Milan Mrkusich , designed several large public artworks in Auckland in the 1950s-1960s. The most well-known existing ones include the mosaic mural on the B. J. Ball Building overlooking Fanshawe Street, and the stained glass windows at Grey Lynn’s St Joseph’s Catholic Church - the largest abstract work in the country at that time. Ref: Patrick Clearwater, BJ Ball mural, 31 May 2010. B. J. Ball (NZ) Ltd was a paper manufacturing company and Mrkusich’s mural for them highlights the paper-making process from the raw material of trees to the end product of stacks of reams. This mural is 7.6m high and 3.9m wide (25ft x13 ft.) and is made from thousands of glass and ceramic tiles. As Julian Dashper recounts in a 1995 article, Mrkusich made full size plan drawings “which he rolled up and posted to Italy, where a master tile maker made a complete mural on the floor, turned it upside down into hundreds of little boxes and ...

The Heritage Images database has a marvelous feature called ‘Through the decades’ that shows how a building and its surroundings change over time. Some of the significant places featured include Albert Park, the Ferry Building and in its prominent Queen Street location, the Auckland Town Hall -- a building of cultural significance noted for its unusual shape. It has been described as “a wedge of cheese or a decrepit flat iron.” The dozen photographs in the 'Through the decades' section document significant aspects of the Hall's history from its construction in 1910, to the creation of Aotea Square in the 1970s. Ref: Hubert Vaile, The Auckland Town Hall under construction, 1910, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 2-V1409 Ref: Henry Winkelmann, Auckland Town Hall from the corner of Wakefield Street, with the Grey statue, 28 January 1921, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W1746