The Blue Baths is a heritage geothermal baths building in

Rotorua Rotorua () is a city in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. The city lies on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompass ...

, in the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

of New Zealand. The building is designed in the

Spanish Mission style The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

. It is listed as a Category 1 Historic Place by

Heritage New Zealand Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...

. The first Blue Baths at the

Government Gardens The Government Gardens is a Urban park, public park, partly laid out as gardens, located beside Lake Rotorua in central Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand. It was built by the government as a tourism attraction, and is still a maj ...

site were opened in 1886, and stood for over 40 years before being demolished in 1932 when the present building was constructed alongside. Construction of the new building was well advanced by August 1932. On 26 January 2021, the Blue Baths was closed to the public after a seismic assessment found the building met only 15 percent of the strength requirements for new buildings.

References

External links

Blue Baths
at Heritage New Zealand
Blue Baths in 1930's tourism brochure
at

Alexander Turnbull Library The National Library of New Zealand ( mi, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) is New Zealand's legal deposit library charged with the obligation to "enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations" (''Nat ...

The Blue Baths Establishment
former leaseholder {{NewZealand-struct-stub Buildings and structures in Rotorua Heritage New Zealand Category 1 historic places in the Bay of Plenty Region Mission Revival architecture in New Zealand