City to Sea Bridge

You're standing on the City to Sea Bridge, which opened on the thirty-first of October, nineteen ninety-three. It connects the Civic Centre behind you to the waterfront, and it's one of the most symbolically dense pieces of architecture in Wellington — though you'd never know it just by walking over it.

The bridge was designed by John Gray and Rewi Thompson, but the real stars are the sculptures. Look at the large wooden figures on either side. These are taniwha — specifically Ngake and Whataitai, from the Maori creation story of Wellington Harbour.

The story goes like this. Long ago, the harbour was a lake, sealed off from the sea by hills. Two taniwha lived in it — Ngake, the restless one, and Whataitai, the contemplative one. Ngake grew frustrated and charged the hills at what is now the harbour entrance, smashing through to the sea and creating the gap between the Miramar Peninsula and the mainland. The ocean rushed in, turning the lake into a harbour. Whataitai tried to follow but got stuck in the shallows. When it died, its body became the ridge we now call Hataitai.

The sculptural works are by Paratene Matchitt — the large taniwha forms — and Matt Pine, who created the celestial poles representing stars and navigation. The whole bridge is a spatial retelling of that creation story, layered into something most people just walk across to get coffee.

Behind you is Te Ngakau Civic Square — te ngakau meaning the heart, a name gifted in twenty-eighteen by Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika. Above the square hangs Neil Dawson's Ferns — a three-point-four-metre sphere of fern shapes, suspended fourteen metres up. The Town Hall on the square's edge opened in nineteen-oh-four and is the oldest building in the precinct.