Hastings projects honoured
The artistic, historic and architectural gems that make up the winners in this year’s Landmarks Awards were announced last week.
The awards, held every two years, recognise projects that preserve and enhance Hastings’ unique ‘personality’, from outstanding public art and innovative architecture, to excellent landscaping and preservation of historic buildings.
Acting mayor Sandra Hazlehurst presented awards for projects small to large, historic to new, and public to hidden.
The Jeremy Dwyer Trophy, the supreme award, was won by the Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank. Its volunteers digitise the region’s historic records, many from family collections, so they are not lost forever. The organisation was set up by James Morgan, who believed the work should be done “by the people of today for the people of tomorrow”.
He trained volunteers in the technology to enable records to be preserved and widely viewed on its website.
The Knowledge Bank is at Stoneycroft, the Hastings District Council-owned historic homestead on Omahu Road, built in 1875.
A small project was preservation of two historic leadlight ceiling panels in the Hutchinson’s Flooring, Furniture and Interiors building, in Heretaunga St.The work was carried out by glass art specialist John Owens. “It’s not always the big projects that catch the Landmarks Trust’s eye . . . We commend Hutchinson’s for their dedication to funding and completing a project that preserves these beautiful features which are so easily lost in this transient world.”
Four building projects were recognised, two new buildings and two restorations.
Hastings’ unique street-art has added a dimension of “surprise and civic pride” to the city, since the first Hastings Icon was installed in 2016, with on-line text explaining the subject and their importance.
The Hastings Icons have been created by artist Adrian Thornton with text by Jess Soutar Barron. The project is managed by Arts Inc Heretaunga and Hastings District Council.
“The arts work have been created as a loving salute to Hastings’ rich fabric of moments and personalities,” the citation said.
The design of winner Te Waiaia, the new Maori language suite at Hastings Girls’ High School, reflects a traditional whare “reimagined for the 21st century”, the citation said.
With its outdoor performance space and landscaped seating area it is: “sympathetic to the surroundings and adds an element well-described by Te Waiaia, meaning very beautiful”.
Another new building, the Waimarama Surf Lifesaving Tower, is “iconic and unique to its area and community”. Art work by Phil Belcher is sandblasted onto the concrete piers on each side of the tower. The gift from Nga Hapu au Waimarama “speaks of places and legends of the area and is there to protect and adorn the tower”.
High praise went to the Havelock North community and Hastings District Council for relocation of what had been “the old, rather sad Havelock North Cricket Pavilion . . .
sitting forlornly” on the edge of what was the Havelock North Domain. Now the historic building is the crown jewel in the revamped and newly named Village Green.
“A negative was turned into positive with the relocation of the pavilion to centre stage.”
At 105 years, the Hawke’s Bay Electric Power Board Building in Eastbourne St East has had a major facelift, preserving its original Edwardian neo-classical features and adding sympathetic extensions.
“On a number of counts this building has elements of distinction: architecture, historical, aesthetic and social – from the large rear section came power . . . for the first time to many of the townspeople in the then Borough of Hastings,” the citation said.
A piece of exceptional public art ‘unmissable’ to those walking or cycling the limestone track between Whakatu and Clive is Te Papa Otanenuiarangi.
The ornately carved pou, designed by the late William Jameson, features an ornate ruru (native owl) overlooking Kohupatiki Marae. The Landmarks citation says the pou “embodies the pre-European history of a rich, navigable river and land protected by kahikatea trees where ruru abounded”.
Also lauded was the Lions’ Community Playground in Windsor Park, developed by Hastings Host Lions Club and Hastings District Council.
“It is a delightful and much-used enhancement of what was an under-used section of the park.”
Performing arts were recognised, with the Edible Fashion Awards cited for successfully nurturing creative ambition and talents.
“From modest beginnings in 2006 . . . the Edible Fashion Awards now draw up to 150 entrants of all ages from all over New Zealand, and an audience of 1200.
The standard of entries has wowed audiences, judges and sponsors alike and the awards night has justifiably become a highlight of the Hastings event calendar.”
Photo caption – Top Guns: Supreme award winners The Knowledge Bank team at the recent Landmarks Awards, with acting Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst. They were presented with the Jeremy Dwyer Trophy.
[People in photo from left to right – Christine Dekker, Erica Tenquist, Linda Bainbridge, Rachel Johnson, Barbara Haywood, Sandra Hazlehurst, Marilyn Longley]
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