A Fault-Line at Te Papa: The Use of a Metaphor (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) (Critical Essay‪)‬

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa was opened in February 1998. A New Zealand firm, JASMAX Architects Ltd, designed the building after winning an international competition. Ivan Mercep was the principal JASMAX architect working with Te Papa, but the paper more concerns the contribution of senior design architect Peter Bossley, who quit from JASMAX prior to the completion of Te Papa. A fault-line metaphor was employed in the design of the museum. Bossley said at the time that the metaphor helped to make sense of a complex design brief and to bring order to the exceptionally large interior space of the museum building. The paper asks what other cultural effects the fault-line metaphor may have had. What is the use of an architectural metaphor, not only for organising the initial processes of a design but in terms of the form and significance of the eventual architectural product? **********