Culture and Leisure
Several education and research facilities of national significance are in the southern half of the city. Cultural facilities include the Dowse Art Gallery (now called TheNewDowse) and the former Avalon Television studios, now used primarily as a paintball arena.
The city possesses civic administration buildings constructed in the 1950s that are regarded as representative architecture of the era. A building of national significance is Vogel House, a two-storey wooden residence that was the official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand for much of the 20th century. It is a prime example of early colonial architecture in New Zealand and operates today as a tourist attraction.
The city is popular for outdoor sports, especially mountain biking, hiking, recreational walking and fishing. Fishing is however increasingly discouraged in Lower Hutt, due to high pollution levels and frequent toxic algal blooms in the Hutt river.
Lower Hutt is to host the 2012 Australasian Police and Emergency Services Games, a weeklong event of 40 sports, since Christchurch could not host in the wake of the 2011 earthquake.
Among the filming locations for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, Dry Creek quarry, which dominates the hills above the suburb of Taitā, became the site for a huge medieval castle built for scenes of Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith.
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