Otago Museum

About

Tūhura Otago Museum, located near the city center of Dunedin, New Zealand, adjacent to the University of Otago campus, is one of the country's largest museums and a prominent attraction in the city. The museum's extensive collections encompass natural science specimens and humanities artifacts from the Otago region and around the world, which are featured in its long-term gallery displays. A notable feature of the museum is its interactive science center, which includes an immersive tropical rainforest butterfly house. In 2022, the museum was officially renamed Tūhura Otago Museum, incorporating the Māori name "Tūhura," meaning "to discover, investigate, and explore."

The name "Otago Museum" was first used by James Hector to describe his geological collections on display at the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition, held in Dunedin. Some of these collections were the nucleus of the Otago Museum, which first opened to the public on 12 September 1868. The museum was originally located in the Dunedin Exchange building on Princes Street. As the collection began to grow, it soon became clear that a larger, purpose-built site was required; the foundation was laid at the current Great King Street site in December 1874. In August 1877, the new building, designed by Dunedin architect David Ross, was opened and remains a part of the museum today. The original entrance to the museum, with its Oamaru stone Doric-style pillars, is still visible on Great King Street, though the main entrance is now from the Museum Reserve.

Management of the museum passed to the University of Otago in 1877. This arrangement lasted until 1955 when a new governance structure was established by the passing of the Otago Museum Trust Board Act.

With well over 100 years’ history on the current site, the museum building is classified by the Historic Places Trust as a Category 1 historic place.

The first substantial addition to the original Museum building on the Great King Street site was the Hocken Wing, designed by John Burnside and opened in 1910, housing Dr. Thomas Hocken 's collection of manuscripts. This collection now forms the basis of the Hocken Collections. Another new wing, named for benefactor Willi Fels was opened in 1930 and today houses the People of the World and Tangata Whenua galleries. A further expansion of the museum occurred in 1963 when the Centennial Wing was opened to provide additional display space. With all of these separate developments, the museum had grown to several times its original floor area, resulting in a complex layout of multiple internally connected wings.

A multi-stage redevelopment project in the 1990s and 2000s largely resolved this, with the addition of architect Ted McCoy 's spectacular integrating central Atrium. The collection storage area was also redeveloped with specialised shelving and environmentally controlled storerooms. The redevelopment project reached a milestone in 2002 when the Southern Land, Southern People gallery was opened by Sir Edmund Hillary, along with the governor general (then Dame Silvia Cartwright ) and prime minister (then Helen Clark ).

The museum's interactive science centre, Discovery World, opened In 1991. During the redevelopment, it was moved from its original ground floor location to the first floor. The Tropical Forest, an immersive butterfly rainforest environment featuring the flora and fauna of the tropics, opened as a major addition to the science centre in 2007. Discovery World Tropical Forest has become an important visitor attraction in its own right. A planetarium was a further addition to the science centre in 2015. Over the course of 2017, Discovery World was further redeveloped, and opened in December of that year as the 'Tūhura Otago Community Trust Science Centre'.

2013 saw the opening of a redeveloped historic bluestone building on the Museum Reserve, which serves as an exhibition space and additional Museum venue. The building, now named the H. D. Skinner Annex after museum director Harry Skinner, was formerly the Dunedin North Post Office.

Largely due to generous benefactors and judicious acquisition strategies, the Otago Museum has one of the most significant museum collections in New Zealand.

Many of the museum's key benefactors were part of the same eminent Dunedin family. [ citation needed ] Among them, German-born businessman Willi Fels had an especially long and impactful relationship with the museum. Fels contributed many items personally, as well as establishing a purchasing fund, facilitating acquisitions made by others, and encouraging others to pass on valuable items to the museum. He also coordinated the fundraising efforts for the construction of the wing ultimately named in his honour.

The museum's natural science holdings includes insect and type specimens that are internationally significant, with the spider collections including specimens from the wider Pacific area, as well as a representative collection of arachnids from around the world. Marine invertebrate specimens number in the 40,000s, while 30,000 bird specimens (including nests and eggs) are held. The moa collection is among the world's best, with two out of the three complete moa eggs in the world held, the Ettrick Egg and the First Earnscleugh Egg.

The humanities side of the museum's collection has strengths in both everyday and art items from all over Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia and Australia, in addition to an extensive collection of Māori taoka. From the rest of the world, the broad ethnographic collections include particularly significant collections of edged weapons and armour from India, ancient coins from the classical world, Islamic ceramics, and Ashanti goldweights. The museum also has some 150 cuneiform tablets and inscriptions in its collection, the largest known collection of its type in the southern hemisphere. Wide-ranging collections of pottery, jewellery, costume, glassware, clocks, furniture, stamps, guns, cameras, and stone tools are also held.

In 1981, Queen Elizabeth II was shot at while arriving onto the Otago Museum Reserve during a royal visit. The shooter, 17 year old Christopher John Lewis, had shot from the window of a nearby building, but missed the Queen. He escaped, but was taken into police custody eight days later, and would later reveal the BSA.22 bolt action rifle used, along with its spent cartridge, in a toilet on the fifth floor of the nearby Adams Building.

The name "Otago Museum" was first used by James Hector to describe his geological collections on display at the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition, held in Dunedin. Some of these collections were the nucleus of the Otago Museum, which first opened to the public on 12 September 1868. The museum was originally located in the Dunedin Exchange building on Princes Street. As the collection began to grow, it soon became clear that a larger, purpose-built site was required; the foundation was laid at the current Great King Street site in December 1874. In August 1877, the new building, designed by Dunedin architect David Ross, was opened and remains a part of the museum today. The original entrance to the museum, with its Oamaru stone Doric-style pillars, is still visible on Great King Street, though the main entrance is now from the Museum Reserve.

Management of the museum passed to the University of Otago in 1877. This arrangement lasted until 1955 when a new governance structure was established by the passing of the Otago Museum Trust Board Act.

With well over 100 years’ history on the current site, the museum building is classified by the Historic Places Trust as a Category 1 historic place.

The first substantial addition to the original Museum building on the Great King Street site was the Hocken Wing, designed by John Burnside and opened in 1910, housing Dr. Thomas Hocken 's collection of manuscripts. This collection now forms the basis of the Hocken Collections. Another new wing, named for benefactor Willi Fels was opened in 1930 and today houses the People of the World and Tangata Whenua galleries. A further expansion of the museum occurred in 1963 when the Centennial Wing was opened to provide additional display space. With all of these separate developments, the museum had grown to several times its original floor area, resulting in a complex layout of multiple internally connected wings.

A multi-stage redevelopment project in the 1990s and 2000s largely resolved this, with the addition of architect Ted McCoy 's spectacular integrating central Atrium. The collection storage area was also redeveloped with specialised shelving and environmentally controlled storerooms. The redevelopment project reached a milestone in 2002 when the Southern Land, Southern People gallery was opened by Sir Edmund Hillary, along with the governor general (then Dame Silvia Cartwright ) and prime minister (then Helen Clark ).

The museum's interactive science centre, Discovery World, opened In 1991. During the redevelopment, it was moved from its original ground floor location to the first floor. The Tropical Forest, an immersive butterfly rainforest environment featuring the flora and fauna of the tropics, opened as a major addition to the science centre in 2007. Discovery World Tropical Forest has become an important visitor attraction in its own right. A planetarium was a further addition to the science centre in 2015. Over the course of 2017, Discovery World was further redeveloped, and opened in December of that year as the 'Tūhura Otago Community Trust Science Centre'.

2013 saw the opening of a redeveloped historic bluestone building on the Museum Reserve, which serves as an exhibition space and additional Museum venue. The building, now named the H. D. Skinner Annex after museum director Harry Skinner, was formerly the Dunedin North Post Office.