Civic Square, Wellington, New Zealand

Administered by Wellington City Council:
101 Wakefield Street, Wellington, New Zealand. P.O.Box 2199 Wellington.
Phone (04) 499-4444. Fax (04) 801-3001.

History...(notes by Kirsty Chamberlain Dec 97)

Proposals for Wellington’s Civic centre date back 100 years, the first real plans date from 1944. By 1987 the City Council appointed a small group of consultants to develop a self-funding idea for a civic centre around the two blocks of disparately scattered civic buildings. Project developers were Fletcher Development and Construction Ltd.

The civic centre project brief was for a new library, conversion of existing library into the City Gallery, extension and refurbishment of City Council buildings, earthquake strengthening and refurbishment of the Old Town Hall, car parking space, design of the new public space and imperative to the development was a link to the developing waterfront.

Fletchers assembled an ‘architectural consortium’ involving three Wellington firms, this led to the 1988 triumvirate of Maurice Tebbs, Gordon Moller and Ian Athfield. Ian Athfield was to take the dominant role in the civic centre project and was directly responsible for the new library, a new children’s museum and the square itself. Athfield’s enduring idea of ‘setting’ being almost always as important as the building itself was central to the development of the square. Understanding patterns of pedestrian access and use Athfield has created a civic square which is a stage for public life.

The tiled square which occupies what was once part of Mercer St. is the roof to the underground car park and is an enclosed space, not continuously but sufficiently to define edges, proportions and walls. Major entrances to the square are from Mercer St. through a huge portal and from the waterfront over the city-to-sea bridge. The bridge rises up over the children’s museum offering enclosure to the square. The broad steps also provide public seating for performances in the square itself. There are various other entrances into the square both between and through buildings.

This public space manages to be a ‘public room’ in the Renaissance sense. The people of Wellington have enjoyed the Civic square since 1992.

Click image to view Civic Square Panorama

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