For answers to questions relating to Te Papa’s collections, click here.
For answers to questions relating to visiting Te Papa, click here.
Content The name Te Papa Tongarewa literally means The Repository "for Things Precious". It is made up of two classical expressions often used in Maori poetry and song,each of them having more than one meaning:
PAPA - Papatuanuku, Mother Earth and (New Zealand), where the museum is located.
PAPA may be used to describe a carved Maori treasure box; PAPAHOU and also the beloved homeland, "te papa kainga".
TONGAREWA, is a type of greenstone (such as the mauri stone in Te Marae). The term may also be used to describe any other kind of "treasure" such as a well loved chiefly person (particularly in a valedictory when that person dies).
An interpretation of the whole name TE PAPA TONGAREWA would therefore be:
OUR WELL LOVED REPOSITORY AND SHOWCASE OF TREASURED THINGS AND PEOPLE THAT SPRING FROM MOTHER EARTH HERE IN NEW ZEALAND.
How would Te Papa withstand an earthquake?
During a major earthquake, Te Papa would be one of the safer places in Wellington to be. Te Papa is situated on reclaimed land which has been stabilised by impacting the soil. Thirty tonne weights were dropped 50,000 times from a height of up to ten metres on to the soil to compact it. The building sits on 150 base isolators installed under the building and bolted to the pad foundations of the Museum.
In a one in 250-year earthquake, the building would be unharmed. In a one in 500-year earthquake, the building would need repairs. In a one in 2000-year quake (the big one), people inside Te Papa and the collections would be protected, but the building might have to be demolished.
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Who designed the building?
JASMAX Architects Ltd, a New Zealand firm, designed the building.
JASMAX won an international competition held by the Museum. The building is based on the design they submitted to the competition with a number of modifications.
Ivan Mercep was the principal JASMAX architect working with Te Papa. He spent two years mostly on site helping to resolve design and construction issues.
He was also involved with the design of the infrastructure for the Awesome Forces and Mountains to Sea exhibitions, and he guided the design of the restaurant (ICONS is now closed), cafe, Te Papa Store, and the TelstraClear Centre, Te Papa's conference centre.
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There are about 10,000 square metres of internal exhibition space and 2400 square metres of outdoor exhibition space in Bush City. The total floor space of the six floors open to visitors is 36,000 square metres.
The site on which Te Papa stands is 2.5 hectares, the size of three rugby fields.
Te Papa weighs 64,000 tonnes.
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Using a Garmin 60CSx GPS at the northern and southern ends and near a central point, Sandy Winterton took the following readings:
Nothern point - Marae puwhara diving board
S 41 17.381 E 174 46.967 + or - 4m accuracy
Southern point - Main entry
S 41 17.424 E 174 46.855 + or - 12m accuracy
Central Roof (best reception) near to the central core
S 41 17.429 E 174 46.930 + or - 6m accuracy
As a reference, the longitude and latitude of Wellington and Auckland are:
Content Wellington, New Zealand 41 17 S 174 47 E 5:00 a.m
Auckland, New Zealand 36 52 S 174 45 E 5:00 a.m
Source Information from:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001769.html
http://www.earthtools.org/
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What do the three boulders at the entrance of Te Papa represent?
The three-stone formation by the main entrance of Te Papa, situated on the plaza, is representative of the Museum's commitment to Papatūānuku (Mother Earth, the land), Tangata Whenua (Māori, the people of the land), and Tangata Tiriti (people in New Zealand by right of the Treaty of Waitangi).
The big stone in the middle is the foundation stone and represents Papatūānuku. The smaller rounded one closest to Cable Street represents Tangata Whenua and the rock closest to the building entrance represents Tangata Tiriti.
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What kind of rocks are the three boulders at the entrance of Te Papa?
The boulders representing Papatūānuku and Tangata Whenua are composed of andesite lava that erupted from Mt Taranaki. They are smooth and rounded like river boulders because they came from a lahar deposit. A lahar is a raging river of mud, melted snow, and ice that flows down the unstable steep slopes of a volcano usually in direct response to heavy rainfall. The rolling and turning in this rapid downward flow smooths the edges of the rock. The original andesite lava flow from which these boulders are derived erupted about 75,000 years ago.
The boulder representing Tangata Tiriti is of Karamea granite, an igneous rock (a rock that has formed from a molten state), and it comes from the Oarara River north of Westport. The granite is about 350 million years old and is a rock type that New Zealand shared with Australia when the two countries were linked as part of Gondwanaland before the separation of the two land masses eighty-five million years ago.
Granite represents solidity and permanence, and its lovely crystal colours of salmon pink, grey, white, and black symbolise the diversity of the Tanga Tiriti cultures in New Zealand.
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What type of wood is used in Te Papa?
The wood is mostly New Zealand-grown. The panels on the wall are matai, the handrails are tawa, and the lifts are lined with rewarewa.
Te Papa's ceilings are macrocarpa.
The floor of The Boulevard (Te Papa's natural light gallery) on Level 5 and The TOWER Gallery and The Marae on Level 4 is made of Eucalyptus pilularis grown in Northland, New Zealand.
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can you tell me about the Sponsor Recognition Stone?
The Sponsorship Recognition Stone in the main entrance was machined by a company called Kusser Granit in Germany. The rock is gabbro (a coarsely crystalline basalt) and originates from Transvaal in South Africa, but is referred to by its trade name as ‘Swedish Ebony Granite’. It sits on a base stone (plinth) of ‘Indian Hassan Green Granite’.
The only thing supplied to the ball is water which lifts it clear of its base and also provides the power to rotate the ball. The water is supplied at low pressure through a nozzle into the cup on the plinth. Additionally, there are solenoid-controlled jets which pulse water to keep the ball in rotation even when no one is moving it. The layer of water between the ball and the accurately machined recess in the base is just 0.2mm thick.
The water is circulated from a 500-litre tank. For hygiene reasons, it is treated with swimming pool chemicals and changed weekly.
The ball is 82 centimetres diameter and weighs 0.79 tonnes.The rock (gabbro) is 1.4 billion years old and is the oldest material in Te Papa.
> See the Sponsor Recognition Stone presented by What Now (video)
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