Anne Salmond is an eminent historian, writer and academic. She worked closely with Eruera and Amiria Stirling, noted elders of Te Whaanau-a-Apanui and Ngati Porou, a collaboration which led to the publication of several books. Salmond has been the recipient of numerous literary awards, scholarships and academic prizes. In 1995 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to New Zealand history, in 2004 she received a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement for non-fiction, and in 2007 she became an inaugural Fellow of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities.
Born in Wellington in 1945, Anne Salmond moved to Gisborne with her family at the age of six. She was educated in Gisborne and Solway College in Masterton, where she gained an AFS Scholarship to America. After delivering speeches to clubs and organisations in the United States of America, Anne realised her ignorance of things Maori and resolved to remedy this on her return to New Zealand.
Spare time is scarce but Dame Anne and her husband, conservation architect Jeremy Salmond, have a long-term dream. They've bought 81 hectares of hilly land, which includes an area of native trees known as Long Bush. Now whenever they can get away the Salmonds head for Gisborne, swap academic and architectural life for gumboots and spades, and go out planting. They hope to establish a native arboretum featuring large groves of native trees each interspersed with 10 different varieties of flax.
Anne Salmond is principal of Wanaka architecture practice Salmond Architecture Ltd.She is interested in design which is appropriate and sustainable in the unique environment of the Queenstown Lakes District at both the urban scale and the individual building scale.Her practice has received a number of design awards for buildings in both Wellington and the Queenstown lakes District.Anne studied landscape architecture at Cornell University in 1980 and worked as a Research Fellow at VUW developing methods for Post Occupancy Evaluation in 1981 and 1982Anne worked as architectural graduate for Stephenson and Turner, Wellington 1982-1985, as a registered architect for Athfield Architects, Wellington 1985 -1988. She started Salmond Architecture in 1988 and was a director of Architecture + , Wellington from 1992- 2002.Salmond Architecture moved to Wanaka in February 2000.
