Te Papa Tongarewa
New Zealand’s national museum of art, history, Māori culture and the natural world.
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the country's national museum and art gallery. Its origins lie in the Colonial Museum, founded in Wellington in 1865 under the direction of Sir James Hector. The institution was renamed the Dominion Museum in 1907 and from 1936 shared a building on Buckle Street with the National Art Gallery. Legislation in 1992 combined the museum and gallery into a single bicultural organisation, and the new waterfront building was officially opened on 14 February 1998.
The building on Wellington's harbourfront was designed by the New Zealand practice Jasmax, with Pete Bossley as lead architect. Covering about 36,000 square metres, it was one of the first buildings in New Zealand to use base isolation, resting on bearings designed to reduce movement during earthquakes. The design incorporates Rongomaraeroa, a contemporary marae with a carved meeting house, as well as outdoor spaces such as Bush City. The museum received more than one million visitors within its first five months.
Te Papa's collections number around a million objects across art, history, Māori and Pacific cultures and the natural environment. Long-term exhibitions include Te Taiao Nature, Mana Whenua, the Treaty of Waitangi display Signs of a Nation, and Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, created with Weta Workshop. The museum displays the world's only exhibited colossal squid specimen. Toi Art, opened in 2018, presents the national art collection across two levels. General admission to the museum is free.
Highlights
- Rongomaraeroa, a contemporary marae inside the museum
- Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, with large figures by Weta Workshop
- The only colossal squid specimen on public display in the world
- Toi Art galleries presenting the national art collection
- Base-isolated waterfront building on Wellington Harbour
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