Otago Museum
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| Established | 1868 |
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| Location | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Type | Public museum |
| Website | http://otagomuseum.nz/ |
The Otago Museum is located in the city centre of Dunedin, New Zealand. It is adjacent to the University of Otago campus in Dunedin North, 1,500 metres northeast of the city centre. It is one of the city's leading attractions, with over 480,000 visitors each year, and has one of the largest collections in New Zealand. Natural science specimens and humanities artefacts from Otago, New Zealand and the world form the basis for long-term gallery displays, while exhibitions on a wide range of subjects change regularly. An interactive science centre within the Museum includes a large, immersive tropical butterfly rainforest environment.
The Otago Museum first opened to the public in 1868. The initial collection consisted of material from the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition (held in Dunedin). It was originally located in The Exchange. 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 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, which opened in 1910, housing Dr Thomas Morland Hocken’s [1] collection of manuscripts. This collection now forms the basis of the Hocken Collections. Another new wing, named for benefactor Willi Fels [2] 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 confusing 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 Silva Cartwright) and Prime Minister (then Helen Clark).
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