The fate of the Napier War Memorial Hall

Heritage meets a councillor...

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1957

Heritage: It’s a war memorial. The names of those who died were on the wall. Your council passed the motion to take down the wall and the 600 names and turn the hall into a conference centre. Why?

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2017

Councillor: Makes sense. You have a building. Prime location. A conference centre generates income.

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Heritage: But you already have a city that thrives on tourism. It makes money.

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Councillor: Go for growth.

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Heritage: Even if it means erasing the names of the dead and appropriating the monument paid for by citizens so a few conference organizers can get richer more cheaply?
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Voice-over
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A “what on earth have you done?” situation. Taking down names of the war dead, desecrating an architectural icon. Ignorance and commerce rides roughshod over the subtleties of history and aesthetics.

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We are reminded of the Biblical story of repurposing a temple into a hawker hall…
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And Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover and found the temple courtyard filled with livestock, merchants and the tables of the moneychangers. And he said, “My house shall be a house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

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