A history of Te Matapihi and where it stands

Te Whānganui-a-Tara is shaped by travellers, inhabitants and stories tracing back to Māori legends.  

From Kupe's visit in about 950AD, the legend of Ngake and Whātaitai, to the legacy of brothers Tara and Tautoki, the area has been a significant focal point of Māori history and heritage. In this time, there was also water, the seashore, and forest that came down to the shoreline. 

In the early 19th century, the region saw the arrival of Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira, acknowledged as our present-day mana whenua. 
 
The area known today as Te Aro was home to Te Aro Pā, which included kāinga and cultivated land that stretched along a coastal landscape fed by freshwater streams. The area was abundant with birds and aquatic life, and the harbour and streams that flowed into it provided resources for those who lived there. 

In 1839 the New Zealand Company raced to buy Māori land ahead of legislation that would ban these sales, and by 1840 their 1100 town-acre sections reached the shoreline.  

This had a profound and lasting effect on the people of the pā in Wellington. 

Those in Te Aro, Kumutoto and Pipitea Pā, Pakuao, Tiakiwai and Kaiwharawhara were driven from Wellington, and many went to live with whānau in the Hutt Valley.  

The large areas of gardens and horticulture gave way to pastoral farming and were then overtaken by industry, commerce, and urban expansion.  

Streams vital to Māori were polluted, turned into drains or used as sewers, and then put into culverts and pipes and buried under the city to be forgotten. 

Te Ngākau Civic Square is located between several significant places, including Te Aro Pā, Kumutoto Pā to the north, and the Waikoukou and Waimapihi Streams.  

This site was once below the shoreline. The land lifted about 2 metres as the result of the Wairarapa earthquake in 1855, another 70 acres was reclaimed in the 1870s, and the land Te Matapihi now sits on was reclaimed by the Wellington City Corporation in the late 1880s.  

By 1900 the original shoreline had disappeared.  

Our Libraries 

Wellingtonians were able to borrow books from as early as 1841.  

The Port Nicholson Exchange and public library was likely to be the first library in Aotearoa. It opened in a raupo hut and closed in 1843, with a new library opening in Wellington in 1850 near Plimmer Steps.  

In 1893 the Wellington City Council constructed a purpose-built library on reclaimed land on a triangular corner of Wakefield and Mercer Streets. The top of its tower was removed after an earthquake in 1897. 

By the 1920s the library was too small for its purpose. In late 1934 a site between Mercer Street and Harris Street was identified, nearly opposite the Town Hall. The building, now the City Gallery, opened in 1940. 

This building had spare capacity initially but filled up as time went on. It also had to incorporate activities not envisaged and operations extended into nearby buildings.  

The first discussions about expanding the library took place in the mid-1960s, and while a minor extension took place, on 9 December 1970 Council determined it would be better to build a new library on Victoria Street.  

By 1987, the Council had made the decision to pursue a comprehensive redevelopment – the creation of a civic square. The design for the new library as part of this went to Athfield Architects, and the post-modern building opened in 1991.  

The name of the building, Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui, given by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Māori Language Commission), sat above the Victoria Street entrance when the building opened in 1991. It translates to ‘The window to the wider world’.    

Te Matapihi saw over one million visits per annum before it closed in 2019 following an engineering assessment that deemed it unsafe in the event of a significant earthquake.  

It was given heritage status in 2021.  

Te Matapihi is currently being earthquake strengthened and refurbished. When it reopens in early 2026 it will once again be an integral part of the beating heart and life of our capital city. 

It will be a modern, uniquely Wellington space that brings our mana whenua history and stories back to our waterfront. It will house integrated Library, City Archives, and Capital E services and be a space for everyone, with each experience a window to exploration, discovery, knowledge, connection, and belonging.