Gábor Tóth – The Wellington Urban Motorway and its photographic documentation

Gábor’s talk will be called “The Foothills Route: the history of the Wellington Urban Motorway and its photographic documentation, 1966 – 1976”.

One of the largest and most complex works of infrastructure development in Wellington’s history, this talk uncovers the history of the Wellington motorway, the thinking behind its origin and the controversy surrounding its construction. The talk is based around a set of photographs commissioned by the Ministry of Works documenting the building of motorway over a 10 year period.

Gábor was born and grew up in Wellington to Hungarian parents who arrived in New Zealand as refugees from the 1956 Hungarian revolution. He attended Wellington College, Massey and Victoria Universities and lived in London for four years working for The Independent (the then-broadsheet newspaper) as photo and negative librarian as well as liaising between journalists and news photographers. Following post-graduate studies, he worked for Radio New Zealand in their research unit, then began working for the Wellington City Archives in 1997. After four years, he transferred within the City Council to become the Local and NZ History Specialist for the Wellington City Libraries where he also looks after ‘special’ collections such as rare books, manuscripts, photographs and heritage database development.

Gábor is replacing the previously advertised speaker.

Doors open at 7:00pm, meeting starts at 7:30pm.