The Port Chalmers Maritime Museum renovation

Port Chalmers Maritime Museum, which reopened late last year after a $3.5 million redevelopment, is a prominent landmark of the seaside town 12km from Dunedin.

Originally the post office, the building sits squat and staunch on a corner near the busy port. To its right is now a striking contrasting box of smoked glass, designed and built by Calder Stewart, housing the museum extension and the offices of Port Otago. The port company bought the building from the Port Chalmers Historic Society for $1 and pays the museum running costs.

“You see the museum before you see the port’s new headquarters, known as the annex,” says Jodi Taylor, an executive assistant at the port company who managed the project. ”Every visitor to the annex has to enter the museum first.”

One of the first things to catch the eye in the two-storey atrium are huge propeller blades that were found buried nearby. Which ship they came from is a mystery. One wall of the atrium has glass cabinets filled with intricate ship models, including two models of the Union Steamship Company’s elegant liner, the Awatea, one in striking livery and the other in drab grey as a troop ship. She was attacked off the North African coast in November 1942; remarkably, everyone on board survived.

A laneway connects the new atrium with the old building, where there’s plenty to see in the ABCDerium, the name given to cubbyholes marked from A to Z housing objects. The Salvus lifejacket is there, along with ships in bottles, musical instruments, old navigation instruments and a model of life between decks for early immigrants experiencing cramped ship conditions.

High in one corner is the coat of arms of the Union Steamship Company, which played a significant role in the growth of the port. The designers drew on the company’s colours of dark green and red for the museum décor.

Inside the original museum building, the mezzanine floor has been demolished, opening up the interior to describe the port’s history. A timeline around the walls tells the story of the port from mana whenua to the Otago gold rush, the change from sail to steam to diesel power, and the introduction of containers.

The port and the township are closely linked; the pioneer room displays instruments and tools used by local tradesmen, from shipbuilders and fishermen to shoemakers, barbers and sailmakers.

Visitors can watch a working model of a gold dredge, turn the handles that pump air to a diving suit, and hear the ‘clink’ on the telegraph as the captain and his officers on the bridge send orders down to the engine room.

And they can take the flight of stairs or the lift to the viewing room on the first floor for a panoramic view across the port. It’s a scene with a thousand stories to tell, and all of them true, aye.