New Plymouth District Council carpark mural (1985)

This mural runs along the wall of the NPDC civic centre carpark off Liardet Street.

Commissioned by the Govett Brewster Art Gallery in conjunction with the Labour Department, the mural was designed and painted by artists Marie Salter and Patrice Alpin along with other staff from the gallery’s mural team.

The geometric design represents the work of surveyor Frederic Alonzo Carrington (1807-1901) who first laid out the town of New Plymouth on behalf of the Plymouth Company in the 1840s. An article published in the Taranaki Daily News on 12 November 1985 explained that the geometric shapes symbolised the way Carrington “started out with an orderly parallel plan… but later developments were more disordered”.

Carrington’s original grid pattern was forced to accommodate the contours of the local terrain for streets like Carrington Road and Calmady Terrace.