What's happening here may seem unremarkable, but it's groundbreaking in several ways. With the exception of Te Puia, the Maori art and craft institute in Rotorua, this is the only place where carvers work in public view; some of the tikanga that deems their work tapu has been relaxed in favour of the project.
And some project it is. For the first time in more than 150 years, carvers from all 19 mana whenua iwi of Tamaki Makaurau are working together on a carving. That's a big deal: carvers guard jealously the tribal specificity of their work.
They have good reason to relent because the work they have embarked on here is larger than any carving or carver. It's about the very survival of the craft they have inherited and want to pass on.
The project, which goes by the name Nga Whaotapu (the sacred chisels) o Tamaki Makaurau, is the brainchild of Rewi Spraggon (whom Maori Television viewers will know as the host of Kai Time).
Walking around the Avondale Market one Sunday, he came across an old carver selling his chisels.
"I was troubled by that," he says. "I asked him why and he said that what used to be an honour had become a burden. He couldn't put food on the table and that life was just a bloody struggle.
"It saddened me that you could have this gift, but your own people don't acknowledge it. When they do the meeting houses, they pay the carpet layer and the plumber; the carver is very lucky to get paid. And that's tragic. We want to change that so that our carvers are valued."
Nga Whaotapu grew out of a commission to do a carving - now in place - for Auckland Council's new headquarters on Albert St. The different carvers - a dozen and a half in the wider group - came together and designed a lintel that told a story common to them all. Binding ropes carved through the design symbolically fastened the ideas together.
Spraggon says the museum workshop is "a dream come true" for the group.
"Most of these carvers have basically lived here, looking at the carvings and the taonga. To work here, in their shadow, is a dream because the wairua and the spirits of the taonga are here. Those old carvers are our heroes."
Central to the idea is creating what Spraggon calls "a succession plan".
"This building," he says, gesturing at the vaulted ceilings of the museum in which we stand, "was built by stonemasons. But they have gone now. We don't want carvers to go the same way. What we are doing is bigger than us and bigger than our lifetime."
Frank Jenkins of Ngati Maru and Ngati Tamatera, who brings the Hauraki connection to the enterprise, doesn't mind laying down his chisel to tell me that it's a hard life as a carver and he's excited at the promise of ongoing work as the group gets more commissions.
"Most of the brothers carving out there are lucky to be getting the same wage as a McDonald's worker," he says. "Yet they are master craftsmen.
"People often don't appreciate the amount of time and research that we put into it. They just see a piece of wood at the end. Now, if we can put things in place, the opportunity will be there for the young ones coming through."
Spraggon and his colleagues talk of grand long-term plans, yet to be announced, for public carvings that will transform the region's landscape. They will tell not just Maori stories, but the stories we all share, "of the Dallies [Dalmatians] or the Chinese or whoever".
"We are all guardians of this land," Spraggon says. "It has 1000 years of history and it's your history, too. We want to share that."
