Names Are Powerful

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The perennial "We don't want our street/suburb/town to be renamed to a Māori name" seems to be heading my way as the New Zealand Geographic Board Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa has proposed dual naming Miramar Peninsula/Te Motu Kairangi (source)

I would love say that I live in Te Motu Kairangi, very cool for a Welshman to be able to confuse the family with :-) And, as we know, the name Miramar has nothing to do with New Zealand :(
'Miramar' means "behold the sea" or "wonderful sea" in Spanish, and was thus named by the first settler on Watt's Peninsula area, resident James Coutts Crawford, who arrived in Wellington in 1840. In 1872 he changed the name of Watt's Peninsula to Miramar as that was the name of a house built for him by his brother-in-law, Major McBarnett. The original Māori name of the area was Whataitai.

And so I look forward to being able to mangle the Māori name for my home suburb.

AND, I also look forward to seeing how this pans out (source):
A 200-room hotel, conference and training centre for the Miramar Wharf is the kind of project to lead Wellington into a new round of creative leadership that will propel the city out of the recession.

The concept - developed by Wellington businessman Tony Williams and architects Jerram Tocker Barron - combines visionary architecture on the water's edge with a total immersion training concept targeted at international executives.

John Tocker says the hotel's modernistic toroid shape meets Wellington's need for a sizeable international quality hotel close to the airport and the Miramar Wharf's location and waterfront position make it ideal.

It's got that backing of @JackYan so it might not just sound like a crazy idea but, even so, I suspect we'll hear no more about it and definitely it'll never see the light of day.

BTW: what is a "modernistic toroid shape"?
Answers on a postcard to ...
Miramar 6022, New Zealand

Comments

  1. HadynAugust 07, 2010 10:38 am

    You've probably Googled it, but a Toroid is a donut.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 07, 2010 10:48 am

    It doesn't look much like a donut in the concept plans.

    http://www.jtbarchitects.co.nz/thinktankz.htm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mike RiversdaleAugust 07, 2010 3:54 pm

    Thanks Hadyn.

    And, GOLLY eh Mike!?!

    ReplyDelete

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