KEY POINTS:
As you celebrate Auckland's birthday today, spare a thought for the sad fate of the grand gift we gave ourselves back in 1971 to celebrate the city's centennial.
Internationally acclaimed sculptor Michio Ihara's spectacular stainless-steel work Wind Tree still languishes in packing cases in an Onehunga warehouse, more than six years after it was removed from downtown's Queen Elizabeth Square for "safe-keeping".
It was pulled down to make way for the ridiculous kauri forest planted in front of the Britomart rail station. City officials said the sculpture would be resurrected as "high priority" in a new park at the waterfront tank farm in two to five years.
That deadline is now long gone and the park still no more than a planner's dream.
Meanwhile, installing it on an alternative site in the middle of the Western Springs duck pond has ground to a halt. About this time last year when I last inquired, Auckland City Council issued a statement saying Western Springs was still being investigated.
"We are assessing the work required to repair the sculpture, consulting with iwi, gauging the budget needed for the restoration, repair and installation of the sculpture, and completing a technical environmental study (which includes topographical and geotech surveys). The timeframe for this investigative work to be complete is two months."
I'm still waiting, as, it seems, is councillor Greg Moyle, chairman of the arts, culture and recreation committee, who on Friday said he had heard nothing further.
Mr Moyle thinks Western Springs would be a "fantastic" new home for the work and admits to a personal link with the work. The 4km of stainless steel tubing that make up the work was manufactured at the Newmarket factory of Sheetmetals Ltd while Mr Moyle's father was managing director.
Maybe this family link will provide the impetus needed to get this national treasure out of its wooden prison, but after six years of nagging, I'm not holding my breath.
We live in a city where the bureaucrats and politicians blather on about wanting to be treated as a world class city, but don't seem to recognise world class when it's staring them in the face.
In 1971, a remarkably enlightened group of city councillors decided to mark the city's 100th anniversary by commissioning five sculptures from international artists. Four of the five survive, if you include Ihara's work.
From the start Wind Tree was controversial. It took six years to finish and blew the budget many times over. The publicly announced cost was $85,700, but a senior council official of the day later told me the true cost was nearly double that - the difference covered by the generosity of sponsors, AMP Insurance. Which is what made the accidental omission of AMP's name from the memorial plaque so embarrassing for Mayor Dove Myer-Robinson when he unveiled
it before the proud AMP directors. A new plaque was hastily prepared.
At the time of its removal, the French-born Japanese American sculptor appointed local sculptor Greer Twiss and lawyer Michael Weir as trustees of the work.
Twiss said at the time that "Queen Elizabeth Square was not the artist's choice of site. He had wanted a much more open site, over water if possible, in an Auckland park." Twiss said the re-siting provided an opportunity to realise the artist's wish. Working with council officials, he said, "We all identified an ideal place for it within the Western Springs parkland, over water - a good secure site visually ideal for the work."
Unfortunately, the council's Maori consultative committee declared they would approve no site for the foreign sculpture until such time as more Maori work was put in parks. As Western Springs was a Maori heritage site under the district plan, the written consent of Ngati Whatua was required. The council at that stage caved in, deciding that leaving the work in its packing cases was the easy way out.
In 2005, the Waiheke Community Board offered to take it, but that was turned down. A report at the time said it was down to Western Springs or two sites at the Tank Farm. Since then there's been nothing, except the claim, in response to my query last March, that a new report into Western Springs would be complete in two months. On Friday, no one at the city council could find it.
