Broadcasting House - Bowen St Wellington

Well here's a little story some may or may not know about Broadcasting House.

 

There was a plan to build a building over the top of BH and leave BH intact but as part of this new buildings lower levels. The new building was to be the extended Executive Wing of Parliament in that it would be connected to the Beehive somehow, probably an elevated walkway. The space between BH and Bowen State was to be fully refurbished into an elaborate entrance way for this new structure and the existing broadcasting house.

 

I know this because I was asked by Ian Scott (Tech Manager) to produce some sketches of the concept. I'm not sure how far the idea went or who else was involved but it was all a bit hush hush at the time. I had to work on that alone.

 

It sounded like a good idea to me and the refurbishment of the BH airconditioning plant, Studio 2 control room, the new Master control room and console, the refurbished Morning Report suite and a number of other projects like Stooges commercial production suite all led me to believe that something "was" going to happen along those lines.

 

Well RNZ was virtually dismantled from what we knew it to be, and the various bits moved to new premises and sold,.. huge garage sale of studio equipment .. then BH was demolished along with all those taxpayer funded improvements. It made me bloody sick to see all that effort and work trashed along with the loss of all the intellectual property associated with BH and it's numerous systems and studios.

 

Now what we have is a bloody useless park with a giant brick carrot in it .. made from bricks imported from India. Not that I have any particular grief about Indian bricks but surely we could have sourced them locally.

 

Text: Steve Mulliss

 

Photos supplied by Liz Barry

Done