Ask Phoebe: Cat designer couldn't bear alternative

Photo / NZ Herald

There is a column in the Wintergardens with a cat statue on the top (batting at an invisible toy, it seems). Is this dedicated to a particular cat, or just a whim on the part of the Wintergardens designer? I do occasionally see live cats there too.
Heather Hauld, Auckland.

Apparently Auckland Council, and its predecessors, have been asked this question often, and it's an interesting wee story. Or stories, as there are two versions. No one knows for sure the origin of the statue. But Mark Bowater, manager of local and sports parks for Auckland Council, helps out.

The first story says the cat column was built in 1927 as part of the new courtyard area designed to link the tropical glasshouse, built in 1921, with the older temperate (cooler) glasshouse that had been built for the great exhibition of 1914.

The original plans for the courtyard area were drawn up by architects Gummer and Ford, and there was to have been a bear at the top of the pillar instead of a cat.

However, one of the decision-makers (it may have been William Gummer himself) was an anti-socialist and thought that, as a bear symbolised Russia and therefore socialism, he would change the statue to a cat.

A story in the Auckland Star of February 4, 1976, provides the second version. Mrs Sybil Dibble told the paper that the statue was the King of the Cats.

"With his upstretched paw he is appealing to the King of the Birds to stop the incessant war between cats and birds."

King Cat was put there by the late Auckland sculptor Richard Gross, said Mrs Dibble. Gross was also responsible for the athlete on the Domain gates and the lions on the Mission Bay fountain, she said.

"He was a very whimsical person with a very fertile imagination. He was a man with magnificent ideals and he saw no reason for cats and birds to fight."

Every morning I walk, or drive, through the Domain and have noticed for some time that no water is flowing over the new fountain outside the museum. It has been fenced off with construction tape but there doesn't seem to be any progress being made. Please could you shed some light on this matter?
Kate Hamilton, Remuera.

Mr Bowater says there's an issue with the Cenotaph water feature outside the museum.

It has been losing water and has been turned off. A repair is being done, by the installation contractor under a defects liability period.

There is also a fountain referred to as the "mirror pond" near the Domain nursery.

A fault here relates to the liner, which requires replacement as it is leaking badly.

The pond has been emptied and the council is investigating repair options.

It's expected the repair work will be completed within the next month.