Pangai Si'i may be bulldozed for new museum site [1]
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 17:57. Updated on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 18:07.
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In a last minute change of plans, Pangai Si'i, the home for thousands of striking Civil Servants during the past month, has been declared by Tonga's Royal family as the new site for a Tongan National Museum that was originally to be built at Raintree Square with assistance from France.
If the French government can come up with the funding for the change of plans, any cries of "liberty, equality, fraternity," still echoing from Pangai Si'i will soon be drowned out by bulldozers on the mala'e preparing the groundwork for the building of the museum, scheduled to be opened in 2007.
When a French architect, Anne Levy, presented her design to Princess Pilolevu on August 12, her plans were drawn up for the original site at Raintree Square behind the Fu'u Kasia tree, between the Post Office and the Westpac Bank of Tonga.
Anne said that the Princess was happy with the plans she saw, excepting that she said that her brother, the Crown Prince Tupouto'a, wanted the Museum to be built at Pangai Si'i instead.
Anne who was commissioned by the French Embassy, Suva, Fiji in June, to carry out a feasibility study and to prepare an architectural design of a museum for Tonga, said that the change of site meant that she will have to come up with a new architectural drawing, "it is a new environment and the museum will now be facing the Palace," she said today.
Tokelau Feletoa
Anne described her original design as contemporary architecture. The most striking feature of the building is a glass front, interlaid with one of Tonga's popular motifs, Tokelau Feletoa, which covers the whole of the second and third levels of the building.
The 1000 square meters building will be 10 meters high with three levels, including the ground floor, to be built at a total cost of $4.5 million pa'anga. including special air-conditioning facilities.
Occupied by strikers
Anne and her partner Nicolas Magnan have been wanting to visit Pangai Si'i since they arrived but because it has been occupied by the strikers, they did not have the opportunity until early this morning, August 23 just before they left for the airport.
Anne was not too sure if she would return with a new museum plan for Pangai Si'I. She said it would all depend if the French Embassy was willing to commission her again for a second museum plan for Tonga.
Pangai Si'i is one of the last open green areas in central Nuku'alofa.