"We wanted to make a building that is embedded in new zealand culture" 

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In this exclusive interview Australian architect Richard Francis-Jones explains the importance of local materials at Auckland Art Gallery, which was crowned World Building of the Year at World Architecture Festival 2013 in Singapore.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki in New Zealand, which also won the culture category World Architecture Festival's sister event Inside Festival 2013, is an extension and refurbishment of an existing gallery designed by Australian architecture studio Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp together with New Zealand studio Archimedia.
"It's a turn-of-the-century building, it kind of embodies a colonial attitude to a European settlement," says Francis-Jones of the original gallery.
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