Town or city Wellington Completed 1899 Reference no. 217 Phone +64 4-474 3000 | Country New Zealand Designated 20 July 1989 Opened 1899 Construction started 1897 | |
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Address Pipitea, Wellington 6011, New Zealand Architectural style Gothic Revival architecture Similar Parliament House - Wellington, Beehive, Old Government Buildings, Turnbull House, Old St Paul's - Wellington | ||
Completed in 1899, the New Zealand Parliamentary Library is the oldest of the buildings in the Parliament complex. It stands to the north of Parliament House (to its right, looking from the front).
The library was designed in Gothic revival style and was fire resistant, being constructed of masonry. The third story of the design was not built to save money. It had an iron fire-door separating the library from the main entrance section. This saved the library from the fire of 1907 which destroyed the rest of the (wooden) parliament buildings. Coincidentally, exactly the same thing happened in Ottawa in 1916—with fire doors saving the Library when the Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament burned.
Like Parliament House the library was strengthened and refurbished in the 1990s. It still houses Parliament's library.
The building is registered with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category I heritage structure with registration number 217.