Town hall debate officially opens at community forum on March 16
Warkworth Town Hall
debate
6 | Mahurangimatters 14 March 2012
The Rodney Local Board and Warkworth Town Hall Advisory Committee will put forward four options for the future use of the hall at a community consultation meeting in the Old Masonic Hall on March 16. The presentation, which will include yy Maximising the building and site 2005, usage has been limited to just additions and modifications were artist’s impressions of how the hall potential, which would include 99 people at a time due to concerns designed in what is now referred to could be restored, will start at 3pm. as the Moderne style with influences the construction of a two-storey over its structural integrity. building alongside the hall (in the At 6pm, a panel of speakers will talk Auckland Council’s building policy from the Art Deco movement. space currently occupied by the manager Bob de Leur says the building The Rodney Local Board is keen to about the hall, its heritage values and Warkworth Bridge Club and Senior fails current seismic standards, has an receive community feedback on the the costs involved in a restoration Citizens Club) project. unstable, leaking roof, and unsafe wall four options before March 30. yy ‘Do nothing’ which could cost an and ceiling linings, which are a fire risk. Meanwhile, current town hall tenant The four options will consider: estimated $40,000 a year. yy A full structural upgrade with final The building has undergone many The Rodney Women’s Centre has seating capacity for 300 The town hall, on the corner of Neville changes since it was built in 1911. The signed a tenancy agreement for yy Modifications which would make and Alnwick streets, has a Category 1 extensive renovation in 1937 changed new premises in Morpeth St. Both it more user-friendly including listing with the Historic Places Trust. the north and principal facade of the a notified resource consent and the the relocation of the kitchen and Preliminary estimates put the bill at building and consequently, the east building consent application were restoring it at around $3 million. Since and western side elevations. The 1937 lodged in early March. lowering of the stage
Town hall heritage value irreplaceable By Graeme North FNZIA, Warkworth Town Hall Advisory Committee chair
When planning for the new community centre was underway, the Community Centre Advisory Committee insisted that it was to be built and operated in conjunction with both the Old Masonic Hall and the Warkworth Town Hall. This approach was endorsed several times by the Community Centre Advisory Committee, and the plans for the Centre at Warkworth always reflected this. Revisionist histories put out by some who wish for the demise of the Town Hall for commercial reasons ignore these inconvenient facts. The community considered that the town hall was much too valuable to the community to lose. Now that progress with the Community Centre at Warkworth has faltered, it is especially important that the old Masonic Hall and the town hall remain fully functional. But most important is the role of heritage in this. Heritage buildings are about whakapapa of place, and wairua, or life force. Heritage is not about locking up a building as a museum piece. Heritage buildings are much more than a mere assemblage of materials. They are stories, memories and anecdotes. They embody
the understanding about who we are, and they change and are adapted over time. Accumulating the patina of life constantly enriches living buildings. A heritage building reeks of passion, hope, commitment and dreams. Through buildings, their urban context, and the relationship between them we are able to access the wairua of place. If the wairua is strong, the continuity of whakapapa of place is assured. Anything less than this is unacceptable in a time when sustaining the life of the planet is a moral imperative as never before. Sustainability is a much-misunderstood concept but it is not complex. A heritage building supports the most fundamental relationship, that between the past and the future. It is this relationship that gives meaning to the present. Our role is to sustain and enrich our inheritance so that it might be passed on to future generations. This is the only sense in which “sustainable development” has any meaning. Building so often begins by destroying memory, context, place, traditions, geology, history and almost everything
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that the process should respect. In this context a heritage building becomes one of those few remnants that have not yet been destroyed, yet our heritage is everything that has been passed down to us. The greatest dilemma facing the built environment in our time is globalised uniformity. Buildings look like other buildings. Cities look like other cities. Placelessness has become a socially destructive force. People do not know who they are or where they are. To some, building and towns are objects. Things. For them, a town is something which grows out of their minds. Intellect, but neither heart nor hand. Fast urban design. Slow urban design is concerned with how change occurs over time. It focuses on continuity. It builds upon what UNESCO would call “intangible heritage”. What we see becomes but an expression of what we cannot see. Heritage buildings belong in place and culture. Thus they are unique, diverse and complex. They may not be that pretty, or that convenient, but our whakapapa is our whakapapa, and it
comes warts and all. It is the differences between one heritage building and another that are important. Heritage by its very nature is diverse. This is what makes the Warkworth Town Hall such an important heritage building. It has stood on its site from well before most of us were born. It is a very rare example of a particular type of building technology. It is this that was recognised by the NZHPT when they granted the Warkworth Town Hall its Category I listing, the highest grade. Our Town Hall has been an integral part of the life and wairua of this community for over 100 years. It is incumbent on us to ensure that it continues to be so well into the future. It is time that we now embrace this building for what is has been, what is now means, and what it can become. Graeme North is also a Past chair of the Old Warkworth Masonic Hall Society and a past member of the Centre at Warkworth Advisory Committee. Some of the general points in this article have been adapted from heritage work done in collaboration with Tony Watkins FNZIA).
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