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Wellington City Council Wellington City Council
News | 3 August 2022
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A space for the whole community to enjoy

People love our 14 libraries located across our suburbs and inner-city, with Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui – Central Library holding a special place in their hearts.

Central Library preliminary design render showing view from Civic Square.

When it reopens in 2026, you will be able to engage with learning, creativity, art, local history, and culture, through the careful curation of the Libraries’ and City Archives' physical and digital collections.

Young people will be able to get creative in the Capital E and library programmes, and the makerspaces will be open to people of all ages. There will be a range of quiet and active spaces for people to read, study or connect, including a large ground floor café that will open out into Te Ngākau Civic Square.

Central Library preliminary design render showing view from Harris Street.

The high-level designs of Te Matapihi are the result of the ongoing collaboration with mana whenua, Athfield Architects, Aurecon, RCP, RLB, Tihei, Art of Fact (visitor experience experts), Māpuna, and our librarians and staff from City Archives, Service Centre, and Capital E.

They will continue working on the detailed designs for the spaces, services, and layouts to house the various library and archive collections, and areas for reading, studying, meeting, or collaborating. These will be shared with everyone later this year.

The team at Ceres New Zealand has now finished removing all the building’s services and interior walls, in preparation for construction works.

LT McGuinness is expected to move on-site in September to set up the site office and bring in the equipment needed to start earthworks in early 2023. A crane will be installed during the first quarter. We will share photos of the crane and the updated hoardings, featuring more artwork from our Creative Hoardings programme.

Read more

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