Maungakiekie Obelisk by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

Obelisk at the summit of Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill, Auckland, New Zealand.

Scottish-born Sir John Logan Campbell (1817–1912) was one of the original settlers at Auckland following Chief Apihai Te Kawau's land gift to the British Crown in 1840, shortly after the Treaty of Waitangi. A merchant, politician, and city mayor dubbed the "father of Auckland" by his contemporaries, Campbell bequeathed Cornwall Park to the people of New Zealand in 1901, allocating £5000 for an obelisk substituting the One Tree felled by a settler in 1852 and that Campbell could not naturally replace. The monument was completed in 1940 but not officially dedicated until after World War II.

Originally conceived by Campbell as a memorial to the Maori people, his Victorian-era expectation they would die out proved grossly inaccurate; when construction started in the 1930s the obelisk was reconceptualized as a centennial monument to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Campbell's grave is in the middle of the foundation that serves as the forecourt, marked with a bronze plaque; his epitaph, taken from Christopher Wren's, reads "Si monumentum requiris circumspice."

Original photo taken May 2014. Submitted to Buzzly.art December 2021; reuploaded to DeviantArt February 2022.