January 29 - February 27, 2025 New Zealand February 23

Today we are taking a city tour in Auckland, with a stop at the Memorial Museum.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum, also known as the Auckland Museum (Māori: Tamaki Paenga Hira), is the largest cultural and natural history museum in Auckland, New Zealand. It is classified as a heritage site of the highest class by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

It was founded in 1852, making it the oldest museum in the country. The first museum building was a farmhouse with two rooms in Grafton, a suburb of Auckland. In 1869, the museum received a new building in downtown Auckland. Among others, Paul Gauguin visited the collection and sketched some Māori artifacts, which he later reproduced in some of his paintings.

After the First World War, the plan to build a new museum merged with the need for a memorial for the participants of the war. The construction project was put out to international tender in an architectural competition, which was won by the Auckland firm Grierson, Aimer and Draffin, who executed today's museum building in neoclassical style. It is located in the Auckland Domain, on a grass-covered hill, a dormant volcano, and was inaugurated on November 28, 1929. The museum has been expanded twice in the south: in 1950 and 2000. Until about mid-2020, renovations will again be taking place in several areas of the museum.