Playland – the Centennial fun park

Playland – the Centennial fun park

Amusement parks were important features of events like the 1940 Centennial Exhibition in Wellington: the halls were educational, but people wanted entertainment too.

New Zealand's 1940 Centennial Exhibition in Wellington was a grand statement of nationhood, marking 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Centennial Exhibition was modelled on international fairs, such as the Paris Exposition of 1937. A complex of art deco-style display halls and pavilions was built on a 22-hectare site in the suburb of Rongotai, near the Wellington airport.

Playland, the Centennial Exhibition's fun park, filled five hectares with games, rides and performances. A British company was contracted to provide the big, expensive attractions: the Cyclone Gravity Ride (a roller coaster with a top speed of 115km/h), a Crazy House with collapsing floors and distorting mirrors, and the Jack and Jill helter skelter (a tall tower with a spiral slide).

Other attractions included a tank of live sharks, the 'Daredevil International lady stunt Motor-Cyclists' Pat Gamble and May Wong, and the Odditorium with its 'human freaks', such as Mexican Rose 'the world's fattest girl' (weighing 343kg) and Bush Bluey, an 81cm-tall African Pygmy.

Some of the big rides proved to be a financial disappointment for the organisers (due to mechanical failures and some unfortunate friction burns on the Jack and Jill). But over the six months of the Centennial Exhibition 2.8 million people visited Playland – not bad when you consider that New Zealand's population in 1940 was 1.6 million.

The 1940 Centennial Exhibition – NZ History website

Centennial Exhibition photographs – Timeframes website

See this image in our collections – Timeframes website

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image

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