City Guide: Tairāwhiti Gisborne

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Growing up in Gisborne in the 1970s, I benefited from the work of Monty Glengarry, Jock Corson and Colin Pilbrow. This included living in a house designed by the practice – the W. Thorpe House (1968–1969). In addition, the H. B. Williams Memorial Library, with its swooping roof, was always wonderful, the Gisborne Museum and Arts Centre was an exciting new arrival in 1977, and Jock and Robin Corson were family friends; I liked their house, too. Today, my brother Adam is project manager at Glengarry, Corson and Pilbrow’s successor practice, Architects 44.

Historically, the Tairāwhiti Gisborne area was known as Tūranga. It was the landing place for significant voyaging waka from the Pacific and Māori have lived there since the 14th century. Three tidal rivers encouraged their settlement; the Taruheru and Waimata join to form the Tūranganui, reputedly the shortest river in the southern hemisphere.

Captain James Cook and his crew on the Endeavour made their first New Zealand landfall near the river mouth in October 1769. Cook’s crew shot and killed up to nine Māori and he bestowed the name Poverty Bay on the place as if to suggest it had nothing to offer him. In his wake, Pākehā settlers set up trading stations from the 1830s. The town area was then set out in 1870. It was given the name Gisborne at this time, after the colonial secretary, William Gisborne.

It grew rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rural economy benefited from