The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand’s national museum, located in Wellington. Known as Te Papa, or ‘Our Place’, it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum and the National Art Gallery. More than 1.5 million people visit every year.
‘Te Papa Tongarewa’ translates literally to ‘container of treasures’. A fuller interpretation is ‘our container of treasured things and people that spring from mother earth here in New Zealand’.
Te Papa’s philosophy, or kaupapa, emphasises the living face behind its cultural treasures, many of which retain deep ancestral links to MÄori, New Zealand’s tangata whenua, the people of the land. The Museum recognises the partnership that was created by the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, te Tiriti o Waitangi, in 1840.
The five main collections areas are Arts, History, Taonga MÄori, Pacific Cultures, and Natural History.
History
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New Zealand Dominion Museum
The first predecessor of Te Papa was the Colonial Museum, founded in 1865, with James Hector as founding director. It was built on Museum Street. Halfway through the 1930s the museum moved to the new Dominion Museum building in Buckle Street, where the National Art Gallery of New Zealand was also housed.
National Art Gallery
The National Art Gallery was opened in 1936 and occupied the first floor of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum building on Buckle Street, Wellington. It was originally populated with a collection donated by Academy of Fine Arts. The Gallery was formed with the passing of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum Act (1930). Both the Dominion Museum and Gallery were overseen by a single board of trustees. The official opening was by the Governor General in 1934.
The early holding consisted largely of donations and bequests, including those from Sir Harold Beauchamp, T. Lindsay Buick, Archdeacon Smythe, N. Chevalier, J. C. Richmond, William Swainson, Bishop Monrad, Sir John Ilott, and Rex Nan Kivell.
Eru D. Gore was secretary-manager from 1936 till his death in 1948 when Stewart Bell Maclennan was appointed the first director. This was the first appointment in New Zealand of a full-time art gallery director. Past directors of Gallery include:
- Stewart Bell Maclennan (1948â€"68)
- Melvin Day (1968â€"78)
- Luit Bieringa (1979â€"89)
- Jenny Harper (1990â€"92)
In the early 1990s, Hamish Keith was involved in a public dispute about his role in the National Art Gallery of New Zealand's controversial purchase of two paintings by Charles Goldie.
Te Papa
Te Papa was established in 1992 by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act 1992. The official opening took place on 14 February 1998, in a ceremony led by Sir Peter Blake, Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, and two children. The first Chief Executive of the Museum was Dame Cheryll Sotheran. MÄori traditional instrumentalist Richard Nunns co-led the musicians at a dawn ceremony on opening day.
The museum is run by a Board appointed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage (currently Jacinda Ardern). Board members have included: Sir Wira Gardiner, Fiona Campbell, Sue Piper, Judith Tizard, John Judge, Miria Pomare, Michael Bassett, Christopher Parkin Sandra Lee, NgÄtata Love, Sir Ronald Trotter, Glenys Coughlan, Judith Binney Philip Carter and Wendy Lai.
The museum had one million visitors in the first five months of operation, and between 1 and 1.3 million visits have been made in each subsequent year. In 2004, more space was devoted to exhibiting works from the New Zealand art collection in a long-term exhibition called Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation.
Filmmakers Gaylene Preston and Anna Cottrell documented the development of Te Papa in their film Getting to Our Place.
Current building
The main Te Papa building is on the waterfront in Wellington, on Cable Street. Inside the building are six floors of exhibitions, cafés and gift shops dedicated to New Zealand's culture and environment. The museum also incorporates outdoor areas with artificial caves, native bushes and wetlands. A second building on Tory Street is a scientific research facility and storage area, and is not open to the public.
Te Papa was designed by Jasmax Architects and built by Fletcher Construction. The 36,000 square metre building had cost NZ$300 million by its opening in 1998. Earthquake strengthening of the Cable Street building was achieved through the New Zealand-developed technology of base isolation â€" essentially seating the entire building on supports made from lead, steel and rubber that slow down the effect of an earthquake.
The site was previously occupied by a modern five-storey hotel. This was jacked off its foundations onto numerous rail bogies and transported 200 metres down and across the road to a new site, where it is now the Museum Hotel.
Collections
Online access to Te Papa's collections is available at Collections Online.
The History Collection includes many dresses and textiles, the oldest of which date back to the sixteenth century. The History Collection also includes the New Zealand Post Archive with around 20,000 stamps and related objects, and the Pacific Collection with about 13,000 historic and contemporary items from the Pacific Islands.
There are significant collections of fossils and archaeozoology; a herbarium (WELT) of about 250,000 dried specimen; a collection of about 70,000 specimen of New Zealand birds; significant amphibians, reptiles and mammals.
The museum has the world's largest specimen of the rare colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). It weighs 495 kilograms (1,091Â lb) and is 4.2 metres (14Â ft) long. The squid arrived at the museum in March 2007 after being captured by New Zealand fisherman in the Ross Sea off Antarctica.
The cultural collections include collections on photography, MÄori taonga (cultural treasures), and Pacific cultures.
Archives
The Archives are located in a separate building at Tory Street and are open for researchers on appointment. There are two categories of archive collections: the Museum Archive and the Collected Archives.
The Museum Archive goes back to the founding of the Colonial Museum in 1865 and that comprise the archives of James Hector. The archives of the National Art Gallery are also part of these archives.
The Collected Archives fall into two groups:
- art-related records and other archival papers in specialist areas (with for instance the archives of Sir Tosswill Woollaston, Lois White and Leonard Mitchell)
- a wide variety of archival material, that include the diary of Felton Mathew, Surveyor General at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and battle plans and correspondences related to World War I â€" for instance the Gallipoli diary of Captain E.P. Cox.
Library
Te Aka Matua Library, previously a publicly accessible library, is now open only to researchers by appointment between 10am-5pm, Monday-Friday. The library is a major research and reference resource, with particular strengths in New Zealand, MÄori, natural history, art, photography and museum studies. It is located on the fourth floor of the main building.
Exhibitions
Te Papa has a mixture of long term exhibitions of cultural objects, hands-on and interactive exhibitions, cultural spaces and touring exhibitions. The long term exhibitions of cultural objects focus on New Zealand history, MÄori culture and New Zealand's natural world. The hands-on and interactive exhibitions focus on engaging particularly young visitors and include both indoor areas and out-door areas built and planted for the purpose. The key cultural space is the Te Hono ki Hawaiki marae with very impressive whakairo.
All permanent exhibitions are free. Many of the touring exhibition are ticketed, but there are occasional free days.
Controversy
The museum has sometimes been the center of controversy. The siting of significant collections at the water's edge on reclaimed land next to one of the world's most active faults has resulted in concern by some people. There has been criticism of the 'sideshow' nature of some exhibits (primarily the Time Warp section, which has closed). There has also been criticism that some exhibits were not given due reverence. For example, a major work by Colin McCahon was at one stage juxtaposed with a 1950s refrigerator in a New Zealand culture exhibition.
In March 1998, a 7Â cm high statue of the Virgin Mary sheathed in a condom called Virgin in a Condom was exhibited, an art work by Tania Kovats which attracted protests by Christians.
New Zealand art commentator Hamish Keith has been a consistent critic of Te Papa at different times referring to it as a "theme park", the "cultural equivalent to a fast-food outlet" and "not even a de facto national gallery", but seemed to moderate his opinion later when making a case for exhibition space on the Auckland waterfront.
In August 2011, a collections manager of Maori artifacts at Te Papa â€" Noel James Osborne â€" avoided a charge of domestic assault after claiming it would hamper his international travel for the museum.
See also
- New Zealand Dominion Museum building
- Tales from Te Papa, a television series about objects from the collection
- Category:People associated with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
References
External links
- Official website
- Te Aka Matua Research Library
- National Services Te Paerangi
- "All exhibitions". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Retrieved 18 June 2015.Â
- "Our history". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Retrieved 18 June 2015.Â
- Te Papa's Facebook page
- Te Papa's Youtube page
- Te Papa's photostream