Restored Campbell Free Kindergarten

Posted Saturday, April 09 2011.

Built in 1910 in Victoria Park, Freemans Bay, Auckland, to the design of architect Charles le Neve Arnold, the Campbell Free Kindergarten was named after its benefactor Sir John Logan Campbell. As one of the first free kindergartens and possibly the very first to occupy a purpose-built building, it is a rare surviving example of its kind. It is a building of national regional and local significance.

In 2000 Salmond Reed Architects was engaged to prepare a heritage assessment and in 2008, a conservation plan. At that stage the building was in poor condition, much of its internal fabric having been destroyed by fire, water ingress and vandalism.

A proposal to use part of the building for electrical services for the Victoria Park Tunnel and the ground floor rooms for community purposes was advanced in 2010 by the Victoria Park Alliance and Salmond Reed was engaged as conservation architects for the project, to oversee implementation of conservation plan policies and ensure that the adaptive reuse of the building involved the minimum loss of cultural values and heritage fabric.

The building has required seismic strengthening, reconstruction of lost walls and windows, ceilings and floors and the principal ground floor spaces are being returned to their former state to look much as they would have in 1910. This has been achieved through a detailed reference to old photographs, the reinstatement of lath and plaster walls and the analysis of paint samples to accurately determine original colour schemes.

The completed building is scheduled to open in May 2011.