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 - 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.
Read more about this topic: Museum Of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or building:
“Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life.”
—Arianna Stassinopoulos (b. 1950)
“The Times are the masquerade of the eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of today is building up the Future.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)