Museum basks in dramatic light show

The lighting will change during the night. Photo / Steven McNicholl

A permanent light show will illuminate Auckland Museum from tonight to mark the 80th birthday of one of the city's most distinctive landmarks.

The exterior lighting will change throughout the night, starting with a moonlight golden hue and building to a warm amber tone at midnight.

From midnight a white and blue light will reflect a moonlit mode until 3am when it will change to a soft blue until 7am.

The $640,000 project by international firm Lightemotion replaces old lighting with new energy-efficient LED bulbs which will require only 1 per cent of the museum's annual power use.

Auckland War Memorial Museum is in the Domain on a hill known as Pukekawa. The building is the fourth home for the museum, which was started in a two-room farm cottage in Grafton.

The building has occupied the site since 1929 when subscriptions raised by Aucklanders in remembrance of their war dead enabled the construction of the neo-classical structure with woven New Zealand motifs crafted from Portland stone.

In the museum publication, 150 Treasures, to mark the 150th anniversary of the institution, editor Oliver Stead said the building, "prominently located on a hill top in Auckland's Domain overlooking the Waitemata Harbour, is one of New Zealand's few truly iconic buildings, and is recognised and admired by all".

The building has had two overhauls. Fundraising started in 1951 for an extension to the rear to commemorate more than 4000 Aucklanders who lost their lives in World War II. It was opened in 1960.

In 1994, former director Dr Rodney Wilson began the first stage of a huge refurbishment project. The restoration of the original building and replacement of exhibits was completed in 1999 at a cost of $43 million.

The latest upgrade, filling the central courtyard with a four-storey bowl clad in rough-sawn Fijian kauri, began in 2003 and was completed in December 2006 at a cost of $64.5 million.

ON THE HILL - THE LAST 80 YEARS

1929: Auckland War Memorial Museum building opened in Auckland Domain.
1936: Auckland Zoo's elephant Rajah dies, sent to a taxidermist and becomes a popular museum exhibit.
1939-1961: American army barracks built in front of museum and later moved behind the museum for transit housing for returning servicemen.
1960: New semi-circular extension at rear of museum opened in remembrance of those who died in World War II.
1974: Hall of New Zealand birds completed. Giant moa star attraction.
1981: Work begins on a new Maori Court.
1987: Major exhibition of dinosaurs attracts 130,000 people.
1994: Refurbishment of galleries and strengthening of building begins.
1999: Stage one of refurbishment complete that includes four new natural history galleries.
2003: Stage two refurbishment begins.
2006: Stage two works completed, including new atrium and galleries at rear of the building.
2009: Museum exterior lit up.