The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

What's wrong with Aotea Square?

Aotea Square is often described as barren and wind-swept. A hole in our city. Why is that?

It’s big

The size is definitely part of the reason. You need quite a few people to make a square like that not too desolate.

However I’m not convinced that this is the only reason. Queen Street has plenty of people on it, so filling up that square should be possible. On a sunny day there’s actually a fair amount of people dwelling around. It’s not like Auckland is only a small town.

What’s around it?

I think the main reason is not the square itself, but what's around it.

On the northern edge, we have the Civic building. On ground level we have a few cafés and restaurants. However you can tell they’re not really serving people outside, but rather people inside the Civic.

That’s Aotea Centre. It has a very big flight of stairs up front. There’s some outdoor seating there, but it is isolated from the rest of the square by the stairs and the retaining wall.

The little corner here is popular with skateboarders. It’s one of the places where they don’t put little teeth on edges to deter slides.

Aotea Centre shows the problem you often get with large buildings in cities. This particular specimen takes up more than 100 m of frontage, and has not much interesting to show for it.

On the south edge, we have… nothing. That’s the abyss to the underground car park.

On the east we have the Town Hall. This building attracts a lot of big words — stunning Edwardian Baroque design.

But on ground level…

…you’re just looking at a 100 m blank wall. Which is 100% uninteresting, regardless of how much you like architecture.

How do you get there anyway?

Via Queen Street, usually. But that is only one corner.

To the north from Wellesley Street, you have this long little lane between the post and the back of the Civic Building. Although a bit boring you are at least welcome as a pedestrian.

Getting there from the south or west however is another thing.

Now you have Mayoral Drive, and the maze of parking and driveways in between.

Despite being in the middle of central Auckland, Aotea Square is actually quite isolated from its surroundings.

Can it be fixed?

Probably. Not by making the square smaller — you’ll end up with a smaller barren square. Rather, introduce reasons to go there.

The southern edge is still empty. Big no-no. There’s still room to build something. What about a small playground for the kids and a pub for the parents. In how many places in Auckland can you watch the kids while enjoying a beer?

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