Architecture Studio Nebbia Designs a Stone Monument to Last a Millennium

An antidote to transience, Interlude is among the first of 1,000 structures being built by charitable trust Paererewā

What would you design if it had to last a thousand years? That was the question asked of London architectural practice Nebbia when it was commissioned to contribute to Paererewā, an Aotearoa New Zealand initiative to create a thousand public monuments across the country that will endure for a millennium.

Paererewā’s name is derived from pae (‘threshold’ or ‘place of exchange’), rere (‘ flow’) and wā (the relationship between time, pause and presence), so each monument is known as a pae, a place to pause and, if in the company of others, facilitate conversation or storytelling. Nebbia’s pae is called Interlude, and is formed of a dramatic chunk of blue basalt sitting on a cliff edge within Jardine Park, Tāhuna Queenstown. Visitors climb steps either side and converse through its circular opening. ‘We took inspiration from a tête-à-tête chair, but there’s also a processional element — you’re walking up the steps, and you’re elevated to a viewpoint you wouldn’t see otherwise,’ says Nebbia’s Madhav Kidao.

Given the distance, Kidao and his Nebbia co-founder Brando Posocco put total trust in the fabricators who made Interlude. The latter sent videos of their progress that Nebbia made into 3D models using photogrammetry software, to mark up with suggested changes. The original plan was for Interlude to be made from a single piece of stone, but it ended up being five because South Island didn’t have a forklift big enough to get it to its final resting spot.

Posocco notes how the monument has now taken on a life of its own: ‘When I visited for the opening, it was much more playful than we’d envisioned. Kids were climbing through the hole, dogs were jumping through.’ As for the next thousand years, Kidao says that ‘it might take some different routes to what we expect. If it rolled over in an earthquake, that’s also kind of interesting.’

Paererewā Charitable Trust general manager Sam Johnson says that each pae requires ‘immense discussions and dialogue between place, people, Māori, council, landowners, artists, designers and community groups.’ The initiative is backed by philanthropic organisation Still, but anyone can fund a site. Interlude was realised with the British Council in New Zealand, co-commissioned by the family of local businessperson and philanthropist Sir Eion Edgar, in memory of the late patriarch. 

‘People are very positive about the idea of marking a place of importance, a place of beauty or history or of the heart,’ says Johnson. ‘Paererewā is designed to help people create a new way of seeing.’ Interlude — along with another recently completed pae on Waiheke Island by Māori sculptor Anton Forde — is the first step on a long journey.

Text by Emily Brooks
Images by Mickey Ross