The New Zealand Art Museum reopens with seismic reinforcements and a new wing

A heritage-listed art museum on New Zealand's North Island coast will reopen on November 9 after a major refurbishment to increase its earthquake resistance following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake disaster.

The Sargeant Gallery is located in the town of Wanganui, 450 kilometers from the site of the earthquake that killed 185 people, and was closed in 2014 after a heritage assessment found it was “unlikely to survive a moderate to severe earthquake in its current state.”

After a NZ$70 million (about $43 million) renovation and expansion that took nearly five years, the museum has doubled its exhibition space and now covers more than 4,500 square meters in total. It was renamed Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery. Te Were or Rehua means “House of Inspiration”, and is the name chosen by the local iwi tribes.

The metal fins on the exterior of the new pavilion are intended to evoke the turbulent waters of the Whanganui River.

The first part of the redevelopment project was seismic strengthening of the original neoclassical gallery structure, built in 1919. Stainless steel bars were inserted vertically through the building's existing exterior from roof to basement. The bars were secured with nails and concrete at both ends. Hundreds of 'python' bolts were then inserted horizontally, creating an invisible mesh to strengthen the building.

The second part of the project was the construction of the new pavilion, designed by Warren and Mahoney Architects working with local Māori leaders. A specially carved waka or canoe was incorporated into the design of the walkway connecting the old building to the new wing.

Other collaborative design elements pay tribute to the site's history as a Maori homeland before it was settled by Europeans in 1842. Fin-shaped metal protrusions on the new pavilion's black granite exterior are intended to establish a poetic dialogue with the shimmering seawater. The Wanganui River which flows into the nearby sea.

The new pavilion is named after Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa (1937-2010), a chief in the Manawatū-Whanganui region who defended the Whanganui River. In 2017, the river became the first river in the world to obtain legal “personality.”

In addition to increased exhibition space, the museum now offers a family room, reading room, library, retail space, café, and event and meeting spaces.

A group of 9,000 people

The new wing also includes a new temperature- and humidity-controlled storage area for the museum's collection of permanent works of national importance, as well as a photography studio and workshops.

Museum director Andrew Clifford says an inaugural program has been organized to celebrate the museum's “rich history and bright future”.

“It represents an important moment in our story and highlights the importance of our region to the broader creative sector” in New Zealand and beyond, Clifford says.

Program No Kuni | From here (9 November – 11 May 2025), it will include a display of the gallery's collection, comprising 9,000 New Zealand and European works in total – the largest of any art museum outside the country's major cities. It includes works by artists such as Colin McCahon, Cliff Whiting, Robin Kahokiwa, Gretchen Albrecht, and Charles Frederick Goldie.

The inaugural season will feature new commissions from more than 20 artists with a strong connection to Wanganui, including Matthew McIntyre Wilson, Tia Ranginui and Alexis Neill, and will include a major career survey of Edith Collier (1885-1964), a modernist painter. Who was born and died in Wanganui.

Collier received artistic training in her hometown before traveling in 1913 to London, where she attended St John's Wood School of Art and the Slade School, and exhibited her work. When she returned to provincial New Zealand in 1922, her progressive style faced criticism. Her father burned some of her studies of the female nude.

Very little of Collier's work was sold during her lifetime, partly because she preferred not to sell, and a large amount of it found a home in the collection of the Sargeant Gallery. A new book was published in September in conjunction with the Survey exhibition, which aims to bring Collier back into her community and establish her as a leading New Zealand artist.

Recognizing Collier's accomplishments “has been recognized as an important part of the redevelopment process,” Clifford says. “She's an important Wanganui artist.” He adds that the gallery has a close relationship with the Edith Collier Foundation.

During the decade that the building closed, the former Sargeant Gallery continued to operate from a pop-up facility in Wanganui. “This has allowed us to maintain the relationship and engagement with our community here and grow our profile in the lead up to opening,” he says. It is expected that the number of visitors will reach 65 thousand visitors in the first year of operation of the exhibition.

Initial funding for the building was provided in 1919 by the will of Henry Sargeant, the wealthy and cultured Wanganui landowner, who died in 1912. The exhibition was the first in New Zealand to collect photographs, with the 1925 acquisition of the Denton Collection the largest collection. From early pictorial photography in Australia.

Funding sources for the redevelopment included Whanganui District Council, the New Zealand Ministry of Culture and Heritage, the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board, and donations from corporate and individual supporters and donors.

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