Heritage et AL

Auckland Central City Library's  The Model City display has the 1968 Central Area Model at its heart. Did you know that Auckland Council also cares for another city model, which dates from 1939? The 1939 City of Auckland model is just one segment of what was once a much larger model of central Auckland. The original Auckland model was perhaps nine metres across in size; the surviving segment is about 1.8 m wide and 3.2 m long. The existing 1939 model is handmade and hand painted and covers a portion of central Auckland, from Albert Park to Hobson Street. This segment of the model is possibly all that survives from a much larger model which was made for the 1940 New Zealand Centennial Exhibition. Image: Looking down from what is now the Auckland Art Gallery – a view of Auckland in 1939. Photograph by Marguerite Hill, Auckland Council. The Centennial Exhibition The New Zealand Centennial Exhibition was held in Wellington from November 1939 to May 1940, to mark a hundred years since ...

Henry Winkelmann was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England on 26 September 1860, one of eight children. He arrived in New Zealand at Port Chalmers in 1878 aged 19, following in the footsteps of his elder brother Charles, who had immigrated three years earlier.  In 1882, aged 22, after a number of adventures, which included being marooned on Jarvis Island in the Pacific, Henry took up a career with the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland.  Ten years later, in 1892, Henry bought his first camera. He left the Bank of New Zealand in 1895 and embarked on a career in photography, alongside farming on Great Barrier Island, working in Blenheim and then back in Auckland, as a customs agent on Queen Street wharf.  Image: Auckland Weekly News. What our artist faces to get good pictures for Weekly News Readers, Henry Winkelmann (left) with camera, 1899. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-18990616-6-2 . The earliest Henry Winkelmann image in the Auckland Libraries Heritage Colle...

The Central Area Model is a 1:480 scale model of central Auckland carefully built during 1967 and 1968 to replicate the city in precise miniature. The model recreates the areas of central Auckland bordered by the motorways which now surround the inner-city area. For more than two decades Council planners used the model to visualise the way proposed construction would alter the character and physical spaces of the city. The Council displayed the model for public exhibition multiple times over the years. In fact, the model went on public display at Milne and Choyce department store on Queen Street almost immediately after completion. Now, more than 50 years after its creation and over a decade since its last public appearance, the Central Area Model is on display once more -- this time on the ground floor of the Central City Library till 21 July 2022. Image: Liam Appleton. The Central Area Model in the Model City display on the ground floor of the Central City Library, May 2022. The Auck...

By the late 1930s it was becoming increasingly clear to Auckland City Council’s town planning staff that there were problems of substandard housing and overcrowding in many houses in the inner city, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Parnell, Herne Bay and Freemans Bay. A third of dwellings inspected in a 1935 council housing survey were found to be structurally unsatisfactory and 23 percent of dwellings were overcrowded. Soon afterwards the new Labour Government brought in its State Housing Policy which the Council hoped would fix Auckland’s housing crisis. However, before the new policy could effectively address Auckland’s problems the Second World War intervened, and national resources were soon re-focused on winning the war. Mid-way through the war, most major housing construction projects had virtually dried up. But wartime population movement made Auckland’s housing problem even worse, as many people moved to the city to get jobs in factories producing goods, armaments and supplies for the ...

The destruction of kahikatea forests in the Hauraki Plains inspired Tāmaki Makaurau artist Toni Hartill’s exhibition Artful Narratives . She has created sculptural artist’s books and art objects that showcase the history of these mighty trees and the importance of caring for the forest remnants. This exhibition will be open to the public on Saturday 2 April until Thursday 2 June 2022, in the Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library. Due to the uncertainty caused by the current Omicron outbreak, all public artist talks and workshops will be scheduled nearer to the time and announced online . Toni was captivated by the history of the kahikatea swamps of the Hauraki Plains which she discovered while researching an art project about the importance of forest remnants. The kahikatea were cleared to make way for pasture. “I remember as a child being drawn to the sorrowful huddles of the often bedraggled remnants which we passed on the way to visit family - both south to Tauranga, via Waika...