Frequently asked questions

About the build

We know our community is really looking forward to the opening of Murihiku Southland’s new museum. Following the closure of the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, it was vital we had robust conversations with our community about all of the options. As with any significant project – and Te Unua Museum of Southland is one of the biggest infrastructure investments in Invercargill in a generation – there is a huge amount of public consultation, planning, and preparation that has to be completed before you can pick up the tools. Physical construction on the new museum began in 2024. The shell of the western building is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025, and construction will continue in 2026. Work to build and install exhibitions will also commence in 2026, alongside fit out of the building. Following handover of the building from contractors staff will continue to work to ensure the building is ready to operate. A public opening date is yet to be confirmed. As soon as we have more detail regarding this, we will let our community know.
At the moment, we’re still working on finalising the timeframe around completing the internal fit-out and getting Te Unua Museum of Southland up and running. As soon as these details have been confirmed, we will communicate this to our community.
We expect to have further details confirmed soon, and we are committed to communicating updates to the public as soon as we have accurate, confirmed information to share. We’re really looking forward to welcoming everybody to Te Unua as soon as possible, and hope you’re excited to see it too.
After a tender process, Naylor Love was selected to manage the design and construction of Te Unua Museum of Southland. Naylor Love staff from throughout the South Island, including Invercargill, have been hard at work building the facility. Naylor Love will also oversee the hiring of subcontractors, which will also include staff local to our region.
Te Unua Museum of Southland will measure in at a whopping 3348m2 in total, including 1408m2 dedicated solely to exhibitions.

Te Unua Museum of Southland will include an on-site café with a sensational aspect overlooking Queens Park, a retail area, a multi-functional education space, children’s play spaces, and back-of-house areas including a workshop, storage spaces and offices.
Contractor Naylor Love and Architectus. The design combines a focus on buildability and cost-certainty, with a visually interesting and modern facility.
Te Unua Museum of Southland will incorporate a striking double-hulled waka, linking the north and south aspects of the building. Our new museum draws its name – graciously gifted to Invercargill City Council by the four papatipu rūnaka of the region (Waihōpai, Awarua, Hokonui, and Ōraka-Aparima) – from the double-hulled voyaging canoe that serves as a centrepiece within our museum’s design.
The double-hulled waka reflects several dualities important to the essence of both the space and our community: mana whenua and tauiwi, past and future, and coast and urban. It is a celebration of the rich tapestry of culture, landscape, and history woven into the fabric of the Murihiku region – much like the stories that will unfold within our museum itself.
Te unua will be crafted using structural steel, southern beech, and Trespa (a wood-like laminate). It will also be affixed with a cultural artwork element. The materials used for this element of the double-hulled waka are yet to be confirmed.
Te Unua Museum of Southland will be at the same site as the former Southland Museum and Art Gallery. The museum can be found on the southern boundary of the award-winning Queens Park, near Victoria Avenue. The museum is a short walk from the city centre of Invercargill.
The name for our new museum, Te Unua Museum of Southland, was graciously gifted to Invercargill City Council by Waihōpai Rūnaka. It refers to te unua – the double-hulled waka that forms the striking centrepiece of our build. This waka has a deeper meaning: it reflects several dualities, which will be explored in depth within the museum experience – land and sea, tangata whenua and tauiwi, and more. The phonetic pronunciation of our new museum goes a little something like this: Tear-OO-Noo-Ah.

The collection

We can’t wait to share details of the exhibitions you’re set to discover at Te Unua Museum of Southland. We can’t give too much away just yet, but we think our community will love seeing its shared stories and treasures reflected in our region’s new museum. This experience will also give manuhiri a deep understanding of our place in the world, and what makes it so special. Visitors can expect to see some special treasures they will recognise, and others that may be on display for the first time, with new stories to explore and enjoy.
Digital elements will be used to enhance and complement the narratives and storytelling found within our region’s new museum. Rest assured, having a keen focus on digital elements in no way attempts to replace the importance or reverence of taoka within Te Unua Museum of Southland. It also doesn’t simply equate to “more screens”, either. Instead, digital elements will complement the artefacts found within the experience at Te Unua Museum of Southland, and vice versa. As in any modern museum, Te Unua Museum of Southland will rely on several storytelling elements and techniques working in tandem with one another, thoughtfully curated to give visitors a fully-immersive, deeply-engaging insight into the stories of our region’s past, present, and future.
Of course! We are extremely fortunate in that our region is home to a rich tapestry of stories and taoka. You will definitely spot some beloved and familiar items when you visit us.
Our incredible museum and heritage services team has been working hard behind the scenes alongside our visitor experience design contractor Gibson International. Together, they have been hard at work, researching and deciding the items whose stories will add an authentic, engaging, and provoking narrative to our experience. Each item that will take its place in Te Unua Museum of Southland has been carefully selected by our team of experts, to add another layer to our storytelling.
The jewel in our crown will be a long-term exhibition that celebrates what makes our region special. 782m2 of gallery space will be dedicated to this. However, an additional 626m2 will make up our temporary exhibition galleries. These galleries will be used for regularly-changing exhibitions curated by our team, or touring exhibitions from elsewhere in New Zealand and beyond.
Te Unua Museum of Southland is committed to being a sustainable and environmentally-friendly facility. In fact, Te Unua Museum of Southland will be the first museum in Aotearoa New Zealand to attain Green Star accreditation. Green Star is Australasia’s largest voluntary sustainability rating system for non-residential builds. It assesses the environmental performance of buildings, across categories such as energy and water consumption, waste management, indoor air quality, and use of sustainable building materials.

By creating a dedicated educational space on-site, future generations of Southlanders will have the opportunity to connect with our stories in a deeper and more tangible way. In years to come, Te Unua Museum of Southland will offer meaningful learning experiences for ākonga of all ages. The education space within the museum will be available for school groups, school holiday programmes, and as a space for informal and formal groups of all ages to gather for talks, workshops, and activities.
Yes! Our city’s new museum will also boast an on-site café that brings the outdoors in. Our region is blessed with sensational produce, and our food and beverage offering will showcase the best in Southland’s cuisine – from the mountains to the sea.
Southland’s new museum will absolutely become a must-do for families visiting Invercargill. All ages will love Te Unua, and it has been designed to be a family and child-friendly facility – with engaging experiences for all ages in our exhibitions and through our events and activities programme. Dedicated indoor and outdoor children’s play spaces will no doubt be a hit with little ones and their caregivers alike. This space will be one where future generations can begin to create memories of a place that feels like home.
Whether manuhiri hail from throughout our region, or the far-flung corners of the globe, the interior and exterior spaces of our new museum will encourage a greater connection to both people and place. Te Unua Museum of Southland is committed to being an inclusive and accessible space for all who visit it. Accessibility has been a key focus since the early stages of development of the new museum, both from an architectural/design perspective as well as the development of the experience spaces. Te Unua Museum of Southland will cater to visitors of all abilities, and will include features such as accessible amenities, seating, and counters, interpretated content wherever possible, and inclusive programming for temporary exhibitions and special events.
While we are preparing for the reopening of Te Unua Museum of Southland we have put a hold on new acquisitions for the collection. If you have an item you would like to donate to the collection, we still encourage you to get in touch with the team so we can take your details and provide more information about our acquisition process. Please contact office@icc.co.nz

Funding and cost

The investment into Te Unua Museum of Southland will preserve, cherish, and celebrate the shared cultural heritage and history of our region for generations to come. Te Unua Museum of Southland will cost a total of $87 million. Of this, Invercargill City Council will fund $76.7 million (as per the commitment made by Invercargill City Councillors in the Long-term Plan 2021-2031). The remainder will be made up of external funding. More than $10 million in external funding has already been committed to the project, while the rest of this will be underwritten by Council if it is unable to be secured.
Te Unua Museum of Southland is a once-in-a-lifetime project that will benefit generations, and it would not be possible to bring our new museum to life without the generosity of others. If you, or your organisation, is interested in coming on board as a supporter of the project, we would love to discuss this with you. Please reach out to Team Leader – Commercial and Partnerships Helen Robinson: Helen.Robinson@southlandmuseum.co.nz

Yes, Southland is fortunate to be home to community organisations that celebrate projects that champion our region. To date, Community Trust South has donated a total of $5 million to the project; meanwhile, ILT has donated a total of $1.5 million in funding. Our team is hugely appreciative of the support Te Unua Museum of Southland has received from our community.

About Te Pātaka Taoka - Southern Regional Collections Facility

Te Pātaka Taoka is our purpose-built collection storage and care facility. This is where we house, manage and care for heritage collections, and make them available for researchers.
Our storage facility is in Tisbury, on the outskirts of the city, and was built on a former Council reserve.
Construction of Te Pātaka Taoka was completed in December 2023, and was officially opened in early 2024.

Te Pātaka Taoka ensures that our precious taoka are protected and cared for appropriately, for generations to come. This facility provides a place to care for and manage a number of heritage and art collections in the region. At any one time, only a small percentage of these will be on display. Given the size and other requirements for the facility, Council decided to build a standalone facility, to enable most of the new museum building at Queens Park to be used for public-facing museum services, such as exhibitions.
Te Pataka is not yet open to the public. If you have an enquiry relating to collections you wish to access, please contactActing Southern Regional Collections Manager – Stephen Cook by emailing stephen.cook@icc.govt.nz.
If you wish to view a collection item for research purposes, Te Pātaka Taoka is available to members of the public by appointment.

About Te Moutere – Tuatara Island

Te Moutere – Tuatara Island is the new home for a Southland icon, and a living link to both our past and our future. The tuatara facility at Queens Park signifies our commitment to ensuring the story of Invercargill’s resident tuatara population continues for those who come after us. Te Moutere – Tuatara Island is an important educational resource for both residents and visitors.
Te Moutere – Tuatara Island can be found within the Animal Reserve at our award-winning Queens Park.
Te Moutere welcomes visitors daily, between 8.30am and 4.30pm.
No, visiting Te Moutere is completely free for locals and manuhiri alike.No, visiting Te Moutere is completely free for locals and manuhiri alike.
Te Moutere – Tuatara Island was proudly opened to the public on Friday, June 7, 2024. The completion of this project is a significant milestone for Invercargill, reflecting our commitment to conservation and to enhancing Invercargill's cultural assets.
Absolutely! Please ensure you respect this precious species during your visit – but as long as you are not disturbing our tuatara residents, photography and videography are welcome.
Yes, those with limited mobility can still enjoy a visit to Te Moutere. Our pathways have been designed to accommodate everybody.

While our tuatara residents are kept snug from the elements, inside the facility, visitors must remain outside. Don’t worry – Te Moutere has been designed with visibility of the tuatara habitat in mind.
The decision to create a tuatara enclosure was made to ensure the wellbeing of our city’s tuatara population. Designed by the Christchurch-based architectural firm Studio4 and brought to life by Calder Stewart's Invercargill branch, this state-of-the-art facility provides a species-specific habitat for this treasured taoka. The enclosure's sophisticated design, which includes expansive viewing windows, burrows for the tuatara, and specialised care facilities, embodies best practices in animal welfare and habitat simulation.
Council does not own the tuatara but has engaged with iwi – Ngāti Koata, Te Atiawa, and Kāi Tahu – and other stakeholders, such as the Department of Conservation, on a "best-for-species" approach to Te Moutere. This project has reaffirmed our collective dedication to preserving the tuatara for future generations.
While we can’t guarantee you will be able to spot any tuatara – they do their own thing, after all! – if you hang around long enough, chances are you will catch a glimpse of a tuatara or two. (Or more, especially on a sunny day – our tuatara love to catch some rays.)
Invercargill’s resident tuatara population ranges from juvenile, or baby, tuatara through to fully-grown adults. Of course, our most famous tuatara is the man himself. Henry is our oldest living tuatara – he is estimated to clock in at up to a whopping 140 years old. He certainly has seen plenty of change happening throughout our city in his time!
A new walking route has been created through Queens Park. The Tuatara Trail connects the former home of the tuatara at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery to their new habitat in the Animal Reserve. It can be accessed from various points within Queens Park, providing a great opportunity for walkers to explore the park. The Tuatara Trail features 20 bollards along its route, featuring QR codes that provide additional information about tuatara, their new enclosure, and our mahi to bring Te Moutere, Te Pātaka Taoka, and Te Unua Museum of Southland to life.

Things to do in Invercargill

Invercargill is a wonderful destination for visitors. While you’re in town, make sure you stop in at our inner-city transitional museum and art space He Waka Tuia, check out the inner-city upgrade at Invercargill Central and its surrounds, spend plenty of time at the award-winning Queens Park, and don’t miss a trip down to Bluff – you can’t visit town without snapping a pic at the iconic Stirling Point Sign! Adventure-seekers will also love zipping round the recently-completed Te Wahi Tākaro o Motupōhue – Bluff Adventure Park.
Southland is home to not one, but two, stunning national parks – Fiordland National Park and Rakiura National Park.
Stewart Island (Rakiura) lies about 30 kilometres southwest of Bluff. New Zealand’s third island is home to pristine beaches, coastal forest, a plethora of native wildlife such as kiwi, seals, and penguins, and a truly fascinating history.
Meanwhile, Fiordland National Park is a true national treasure. Internationally-recognised as part of the wider UNESCO World Heritage site, Te Wāhipounamu (Place of the Greenstone), it is home to stunning glaciers, alpine ranges, and mountain-to-sea vistas that have to be seen to be believed.