In May 1920, the Prince of Wales attended a history pageant on Petone Beach. The highlight of the performance was a re-enactment of the arrival of New Zealand Company settlers at the same place 80 years earlier. For the occasion, a 6,000 seat amphitheatre and model Maori village were constructed at the intersection of Buick Street and The Esplanade. The arena opened directly onto the beach where a rudimentary jetty reached 100 feet into the harbour. None of the structures were permanent, but the pageant left an enduring imprint by fixing the co-ordinates of what was putatively the nation’s birthplace. When they laid out their venue, the pageant’s organisers referred to the local street pattern rather than any accurate record of the historic landfall. Petone’s orthogonal plan post-dated the settlers’ arrival by several decades, but it provided convenient axes for a commemorative space. The performance was designed to give these lines symbolic value and, significantly, the Prince of Wales was made to traverse their full extent. In doing so, he defined an emblematic threshold between land and sea, and he inscribed a symbolic pathway from the New Zealand Company’s fleet to the notional site of its first settlement. The pageant’s wider setting was equally significant. A close context of tidy bungalows, private gardens and efficiently planned factories suggested that the pioneers’ most important legacy was a proletarian garden suburb. So, the pageant gave both geometry and meaning to the future memorial. The two orthogonal axes defined a symbolic origin, and the surrounding suburban fabric promoted a version of progress which underpinned New Zealand’s national identity.