Library Chambers (Christchurch)

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Old Canterbury Public Library building.
Armson, Collins & Harman. Buyilt in three stages; 1875, 1893, 1923. Apparently this was a maori burial site and thus tapu.
The site of the former Christchurch Public Library was once the urupa for Puari pa, and human remains were still visible there during the early 1850s. Puari was the name of an early Waitaha settlement, occupied between 1000 and 1500 A.D. Waitaha were the first Maori settlers in the Christchurch area. The loop in the river that encompassed the site was an important mahinga kai (food gathering area). Little is known about this settlement or its occupants but at its height the pa would have been home to about 800 Waitaha people.
Later, during the Ngai Tahu period (mid 1700s onwards), a large variety of food was gathered in the Puari pa area. Unlike Waitaha before them, Ngai Tahu did not make their homes in the area but rather travelled there from other settlements in order to gather food.
The Christchurch Public Library had its roots in the Mechanics' Institute, an organisation established to provide reading rooms for workers. The first such institute opened in Glasgow, Scotland in 1823 and a second in London the following year. A Mechanics' Institute was established in Christchurch in 1859 and its first rooms were in a two-storeyed wooden building designed by Samuel Farr in 1863. In 1873 the Institute was vested in the newly established Canterbury University College and remained under university control until 1948. Originally a collection of serious literature, the library added a second collection after 1913 that could be lent to subscribers. Gradually these two collections merged and in 1952 the library became free. After 1948 the library came under the control of the City Council and remained on this site until the new library in Gloucester St opened in February 1982.
The first permanent material building erected for the library was a single storey brick building, built in 1875 and designed by William Armson in the Venetian Gothic style. It was linked to the wooden Mechanics' Institute building by a timber corridor. This first library building is registered separately by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust/Pouhere Taonga as a Category I building.
In 1901-1902 the Mechanics' Institute building was removed and replaced by a two-storeyed building, which forms one part of this registration. It was designed in a more severe gothic style than the 1876 building and was built in red brick with white stone facings.
In 1924 a second two-storey building was added to the complex. Facing Hereford Street, it was designed by Collins and Harman, the architectural firm founded by William Armson. This building complements the 1902 one with its use of red brick and white facings but does not echo the Gothic features of the earlier building. It included a separate room for children and carved above the entrance is 'Children's Library'. The children's section of the library was first established by E. J. Bell, the Librarian from 1913-1951.
These two buildings, from 1902 and 1924, are significant as part of the former public library complex, which has a long association as a place of knowledge and recreation with the public of Christchurch. It also forms an important part of the historic townscape along the Avon River, which includes the Canterbury Club and the former Municipal Chambers.