Farewell to the pyramid, a cultural landmark
A key part of Southland’s history is set to become history itself this week, when bulldozers crunch into the former Southland Museum and Art Gallery building in Invercargill.
Development will follow destruction when a new museum rises in its place, but for now the fall of the familiar pyramid shell, and the older buildings inside it, closes many a chapter in the fairly turbulent history of the city’s museum.
The council has invited people to share their memories of the old museum on its Facebook page or to share handwritten memories on postcards at the Invercargill Public Library, Te Hīnaki Civic Building and He Waka Tuia gallery in Kelvin St.
There’s a lot to cover, starting with the legendary pie shop that began it all.
Andrew McKenzie’s Scotch Pie Shop and Museum opened in Dee St in 1872 and, at various times, boasted a live kiwi, a kākāpō, a tortoise and a monkey.
In 1875 it was sold to the Athenaeum, a library in the town centre that was open only to paid members. Though it wasn’t so welcoming of critters, there are plausible accounts of a tuatara roaming its shelves.
In cramped conditions, the artifacts began to deteriorate. In 1912, five years after the Southland Education Board had taken over ownership, the collection was moved to the new Southland Technical College.
Initially it had a raft of community funders, but the support of the Athenaeum committee, county council, Southland Education Board, High Schools Board, Teachers’ Institute and A&P Society gradually subsided, leaving only the town council to carry the cost.
Deterioration and crowding again became a vivid concern, with parts of the collection squished into the town’s water tower.
A target date for the museum at Queens Park was set for 1940, and as that date approached the memorable headline “Hitler or no Hitler! Southland will have a new museum!” proved correct, presumably to the acute disappointment of der Führer.
The museum opened in 1942; barely two years later, it was already becoming overcrowded.
Funding remained a nagging issue, and in April 1959 the museum closed. Security was the cited reason but behind this was the reproachful stance that the museum had struggled on “a pittance” for long enough.
It reopened in mid-December, as local body co-operation again rallied, and the long-felt absence of an art gallery was addressed when one was added in 1961.
That was also the year George the tuatara was put on display and became a major hit. A more capacious purpose-built tuatarium opened in late 1974, by which time staff member Lindsay Hazley was on board and en route to developing a captivity breeding programme that would become internationally renowned.
A youthful Russell Beck – later to become the father of Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck – had built and donated a telescope around which an observatory was built. In 1975 he became the museum’s director, serving until 1999.
Under his watch the pyramid roof was added, opening in 1990 with an audio-visual display of images projected onto the roof – though another, celebrating 800 years of human history hereabouts, in 1998, was even larger event with an estimated 20,000 people attending.
In 2004, the museum’s trust board changed its constitution to secure longer-term funding from Southland’s city and district councils, and the Invercargill City Council picked up the management contract.
Longstanding plans to develop the museum became mired in multiple consultations and higher council priorities. This led to a snotty Southland Times editorial noting that the original Great Pyramid of Giza had been built in 20 years, which was longer than the Invercargill pyramid’s redevelopment plans had languished.
The museum was closed as an earthquake risk – a controversial assessment – in 2018.
The city council has now undertaken Project 1225, which involves the creation of three new cultural facilities for the city: the rebuild of a museum on the site; the recently completed Te Pātaka Taoka regional museum collection storage facility at Tisbury; and a specialist tuatara enclosure under construction at the Queens Park animal reserve.
The demolition team will be establishing on-site tomorrow and the first section of works will be completing the interior removal of asbestos.