Te Papa To Display 8 Metre Lord Of The Rings Tower Of Barad-Dur
To mark the premiere of the third and final film in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Te Papa will display the
eight-metre-high, 6-metre-wide model of Sauron's Barad-Dur tower from Monday 1 December through to Wednesday 28 January
2004. Complete with its moat of molten lava flow, Barad-Dur will be erected in Te Papa's Wellington Foyer on level 2.
Generously selected and loaned by Director Peter Jackson, Barad-Dur is one of Weta Workshop's spectacular models and was
used in all three films.
The model took a core team of four people, and an auxiliary team of eight more, five months to create. It is one of 72
models made for the films.
The tower will be installed on the evening of Sunday 30 November by a team of Te Papa's specialist exhibition
installers.
'We are delighted to be able to display this enormous and very impressive model which demonstrates so clearly the skill
and incredible attention to detail which has characterised the three films' said Paul Brewer, Te Papa's Director of
Marketing and Communications. 'Judging by the overwhelming success of The Lord of the Rings exhibition at Te Papa last
year, Barad-Dur's tower will be very popular with our visitors.'
Barad-Dur was originally sculpted and modelled out of compressed polystyrene, plasticine and urethane sheeting. Each
component was then silicon moulded and reproduced in black-tinted, non-expanded, semi-flexible polyurea.