Winning design turns out rotten

The Conservation Department's landmark visitor centre at Lake Waikaremoana is rotten and might have to be demolished.

Staff are running the centre from its basement while the three upper levels stand empty, condemned as unsafe.

The Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre was designed by renowned architect John Scott and hailed as one of the finest examples of his work when it opened in 1976.

But acting Gisborne-Hawke's Bay conservator Mark Davies said the centre turned out to be a leaky building that had defied all attempts to rectify design and construction problems for 30 years.

The building hit the headlines in 1997, when artist Colin McCahon's triptych Urewera Mural commissioned specifically for the visitor centre was stolen by Maori activists. It was returned 15 months later, and rehung in the visitor centre's museum and gallery in 2000. It is now in the care of Auckland Art Gallery.

Mr Davies said all efforts had been made to save the building. "We have tried very hard to maintain it. We've spent a lot of money on it."

It had been reroofed and reclad, but "some of the design features and the wet location and also some of the materials and construction weren't the greatest".

The upper floors were closed early last year after engineers declared them unsafe. DOC had not decided what would happen next, Mr Davies said. "We put it on ice."

No decision would be made until the Crown reached a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Tuhoe, and DOC restructured its management, which could take another two years.

"Both Tuhoe and DOC see a visitor centre as a very important thing, but it probably won't be on that site or in that building," Mr Davies said.

Architect Pierre du Toit, chairman of the Gisborne-Hawke's Bay branch of the Institute of Architects, said it would be a sad day for New Zealand architecture if Scott's building were demolished. "It's one of the finest examples of his work. It's an amazing building."

- © Fairfax NZ News

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