Heritage will be lost, says opponent
The demolition of two heritage buildings at the former teachers’ college campus in Karori will lead to significant cultural loss, warns Historic Places Wellington.
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster said the decision by owner Ryman Healthcare to bowl the Waghorn and Gray buildings was made because engineers did not believe they could be strengthened safely to withstand a one-in-2500-year earthquake.
But bringing in the wrecking ball has ruffled the feathers of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, which is unhappy that examples of Brutalist architecture will be destroyed.
Ryman bought the site from Victoria University for $28 million in late 2017. It planned to build a rest home, hospital and dementia care unit.
Its plans hit a snag when two structural engineering firms declared the Waghorn and Gray buildings structurally unsafe.
Ryman said attempting to retrofit the two category onelisted heritage buildings would have put construction workers ‘‘at unacceptable risk’’.
‘‘We’re retaining three buildings with significant heritage values, and the team has come up with a sensitive design for the replacement buildings which we think will fit well with the character of the site,’’ chief executive Gordon MacLeod said.
Ryman intends to retain the Allen Ward VC Hall, Tennant Block and the Oldershaw musical Octagon.
Historic
Places
Wellington deputy chair Ben Schrader said the group was disappointed but not surprised by the demolition decision.
Wellington was losing one of the best examples of the Brutalist genre in Australasia, he said. ‘‘The token retention of three heritage buildings on the site does nothing to compensate for this significant cultural loss.
‘‘We knew as soon as Ryman acquired the site from Victoria University that it had very little sympathy for the heritage values of the buildings on the site and would do its utmost to demolish as many of these that it thought it could get away with.’’
Heritage NZ was told of the demolition plans last Thursday, while Wellington City councillors were briefed on Monday.
‘‘Heritage will be lost, and the project that Ryman Healthcare has developed will not be sympathetic or sensitive to heritage,’’ chief executive Andrew Coleman said.
‘‘We had been led to believe that there would be a much fuller heritage concept being retained in the development. Sadly, this is not the case.
‘‘Based on what we heard last Thursday, we do not believe that the Waghorn and Gray replacement buildings will be ‘sensitive’ to the other heritage buildings on site.’’
While Foster also expressed his disappointment over the loss of two buildings, he felt that there was too much focus on making sure buildings could merely withstand earthquakes, rather than ensuring they could be operable after a big one.
‘‘I said that post-Christchurch. Some of the buildings killed people . . . you had all these buildings that were unusable for years afterwards.
‘‘From a Wellington perspective, we can’t afford to have our city become unliveable.’’
Ryman will hold more community drop-in days to show the updated plans on November 13 and 14.