Cromwell Museum, the “storytelling heart” of Te Puna Mahara | Cromwell Memorial Events Centre, will open in July with a new official name.
At the Central Otago District Council meeting on Wednesday 29 April 2026, mana whenua gifted a te reo Māori name for the museum, Te Huika Wai.
Te huika means ‘the gathering’, and wai generally means ‘water’, but can also refer to knowledge, people, memories, resources and stories – all fitting for a museum and cultural space. This name reflects the confluence of the two rivers – Kawarau and Mata-Au, where the museum will reside in its new, permanent home.
Cromwell Museum Trust chair Martin Anderson expressed his gratitude for the name.
“The new Cromwell Museum has come back to 'The Junction' (of the Kawarau River and Mata-Au/Clutha) where it started back in the 1960s, when it was housed in the Athenaeum Hall on Melmore Terrace," Mr Anderson says.
“The filling of Lake Dunstan saw the museum’s relocation in 1988 to The Mall in Cromwell. But now the museum has returned to the vicinity of its original site, where the two rivers, the land and people meet at the storytelling heart of the new facility. It’s heart-warming and exciting to be given this rare opportunity to be part of such an amazing community project and journey.”
The project team, incorporating Story Inc as design consultants, has been working with the Cromwell Museum Trust on its new space on the southeastern side of Te Puna Mahara | Cromwell Memorial Events Centre. The $1.6 million fit-out has been community-funded with contributions from the Central Lakes Trust, Lottery Grant Board, and Otago Community Trust.
The Cromwell Museum has now closed at its former location in The Mall to relocate to its new space, to allow enough time to prepare the collection items for removal, and the dismantling of current exhibits. Existing museum space will be used for these activities.
"We are very much looking forward to opening in the new space from July," Mr Anderson says
It will be an interactive museum experience including animations, interactive touchscreens, and audiovisual aspects – a world-class building to be matched with a world-class museum, Cromwell Community Board Chair Anna Harrison, says.
“As a board, we congratulate the Cromwell Museum Trust for wanting to be part of this project and a wider team working together. The community wanted an events centre that could facilitate multiple offering; establishing a museum in a multi-complex facility is a rare thing in New Zealand and will change the way the Cromwell Museum operates. It’s going to be a new challenge stepping into this new building, and we applaud the museum for a bold and innovative move."
The Cromwell Museum has 40-plus volunteers from community board members to hosts, "who like so many in this community are working together to provide the best possible service for our residents, visitors and guests," Mrs Harrison says.
The museum will house displays depicting the story of lakes ‘made by the hand of man’ (as prophesied by Rākaihautū, displayed at the beginning of the exhibition) connecting to the hydro dam story at the other side of the space.
In the Natural History zone, visitors discover the secrets held in moa poo and what they tell us about the trees including kōwhai that grew here when the big birds stomped through this land. And in the Conservation zone visitors can learn about local efforts to re-introduce kōwhai again to have hills cloaked in yellow.
People will also learn about the pre-European and settler history, geology and gold, Chinese settlement and colonial Cromwell.
