City Gallery

Wellington's City Gallery occupies the old stripped-classical 1930’s Central Library building located in Civic Square. architecture+ has been involved in this prominent civic project on a number of occasions, including the initial conversion from a library to a gallery in 1993. Since then, architecture+ has completed alterations and additions; in 2009 adding a theatre to the back and two new galleries on top; in 2019 undertaking various refurbishments including an upgrade to the building's main entrance; in 2026 the HVAC and seismic upgrade including architectural alteration to various gallery spaces; and most recently the new fitout of the gallery cafe. In converting the original building into a gallery, the overriding architectural challenge was to allow the rich history of the building and its previous function as a library to be recognised, despite having a new function as an art gallery. Alterations and additions have been treated as a new and contemporary layer, expressive of the contemporary focus of the gallery. The interiors are restrained to allow the installations and exhibitions to be the focus, with display walls deliberately truncated below the ceiling to both allow natural light to penetrate through the exhibition spaces and to allow the column and beam junctions to be seen. The significant additions completed in 2009 are comprised of two additional galleries and an auditorium, which provided an opportunity to design something new and discrete from the original building. architecture+ took this opportunity to express the City Gallery’s role of challenging preconceived notions of art and design, through the unexpected materiality of the new additions. In a simple yet bold gesture, the new building was clad in a metal web-grate rain screen, where the open web provides a lightness that ensures that the addition is not domineering over the original building.