The pipe organ is first and foremost a musical instrument, but it is also a complex feat of engineering.

The Auckland Town Hall Organ weighs 40 tonnes, the pipes alone account for 28 tonnes.

Number of pipes: 5391, of which 939 have been restored from the 1911 organ.

Largest pipe:  bottom C of the 32-foot Open Wood: 9.75 metres high (32 feet) with an interior volume of 2600 litres. The note sounded by this pipe has a fundamental frequency of 16 Hz.

Smallest pipe: speaking length 6mm (the pipe itself is quite a bit bigger than this to make it possible to handle!)

View from the top level into the Grand Hall	The 32-foot Open Wood rank	The tubes of the Kōauau rank, made from scientific glass

Lowest frequency note: bottom C of the Pedal Gravissima stop, 8 Hz. (The entire bottom octave of this stop is below the limit of human hearing: it is felt rather than heard).
Highest frequency: 17kHz from the Swell Furniture.

Loudest stop: equal place to the 16' Ophicleide in the Pedal organ and the Orchestral Trumpet in the Solo. The largest pipe in the Ophicleide rank has a diameter of 349.1mm at the top.

The three electric blowers in the basement deliver a wind flow of 209 cubic metres per minute, into 320 metres of wooden wind trunking (the length of three football fields), into 23 bellows loaded with four tonnes of weights, and then into 18 main wind-chests: ready to blow through one pipe or hundreds at once.

Most pipes operate on a wind pressure of 3 inches (water gauge). Highest wind pressure: 15 inches.

The back of the console

The main wiring loom

Framing

The organ was built by a team of 42 personnel from Klais Orgelbau over a period of 26 months, taking around 27,000 man-hours. The chief designer of the organ was Stefan Hilgendorf.

Next in Tour: The Māori Pipes