The University of Auckland's Old Choral Hall is on the city campus at 7 Symonds St. It has been restored and refurbished. Photo / University of Auckland
Discovering a water well beneath a 153-year-old University of Auckland building, as well as a forgotten stone plaque, surprised contractors during a big upgrade.
“We never expected that,” said University of Auckland chief property officer Simon Neale of what lay beneath and inside Symonds St’s ornate Old Choral Hall, one of the city’s most significant heritage buildings.
“Once you start opening things up, you find aspects of old buildings that weren’t recorded,” he said.
“There was no record of any well being beneath this building, but it was probably originally to get water back around 1872 when it was built or it could pre-date the actual building,” Neale said.
The well will be highlighted by being covered in glass.
Neale said there were other surprises too.
A controversial 1915 stone plaque was also found by a construction worker, stored in a cupboard inside the hall.
That has now gone to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Neale said.
Faculty of Arts and Education history lecturer Dr Rowan Light said that was removed from the Albert Barracks Wall at the city campus in 1983 and had been vandalised by someone who took exception to the use of the phrase “friendly Maoris” in the inscription.
The plaque was commissioned in 1915 by the Auckland Civic League and reads: “To commemorate the union and comradeship of Pakeha and Maori. During the Great European War, this tablet was fixed by the Auckland Civic League, September 1915 on the remnant of the barrack wall built by friendly Maoris in 1848, after the burning of Kororareka.”
Light said: “I’d long assumed it had ended up in a tip or been destroyed. We were blown away to hear that it had been rediscovered at Old Choral Hall.”
He is also the curator for the New Zealand wars at Auckland Museum.
Neale said Architectus did the architectural work on the Old Choral Hall where Aspec Construction was the builder, Beca were engineers and RCP the project managers.
Repurposing the building required a major fitout involving the design, demolition and construction of elements on all floors without affecting important heritage-listed building features, he said.
The scope of works was a seismic upgrade, heritage refurbishment, addition of a lift for accessibility, replacement of building services, installation of sprinklers and a general full refurbishment of the building.
The university project includes the reinstatement of the portico on Symonds St.
Work began in October 2022 and has now reached practical completion.
But Neale said no final figures were available on costs and they would not be ready till early next year.
The programme was to conserve, restore, refurbish yet also modernise the building so it was fit for purpose.
The schedule 1 heritage building survives as one of the largest buildings from 19th-century Auckland and is on the corner of Alfred St, in the heart of the city campus.
Neale described the technical joys and challenges of the modernisation and restoration of a significant part of Auckland’s built environment history.
James Mooney of Architectus worked on the project with Archifact Architecture & Conservation.
The upgrade is to accommodate some departments and student areas.
Architectus said many of the unsympathetic additions and modifications were removed to reinstate the clarity and legibility of the building’s form and restore the original, larger, more flexible volumes and spaces where these better meet current needs.
The neoclassical building was designed by renowned architect Edward Mahoney. The building at 7 Symonds St hosted the first performances of Beethoven and Mozart in New Zealand.
Yet it has been altered and extended many times during its life, both during its time as part of the university estate and before then.
In 1931, the distinctive portico was removed after fears in Auckland following the Napier earthquake.
“For the first time in 94 years, the Symonds St elevation has been restored to look as it would have done prior to removal,” Neale said.
“The bones of the building were good but it was in need of a substantial refurbishment to provide it with a sustainable future and to make it fit for purpose in the context of a modern university.”
The approach taken was to conserve where needed, refurbish as appropriate and to marry the beautiful historic fabric with some subtle modern interventions, he said.
Every detail was carefully considered to preserve the building’s character while preparing it for future generations of students, staff, and visitors, Neale said.
“We don’t just build modern Green Star certified buildings, modern centres of research excellence or state-of-the-art modern student facilities,” he said.
The university also has a large nationally significant heritage portfolio, Neale said.
The hall is adjacent to the heritage grounds around Old Government House.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.