In the late 1960s, the Australian Mutual Provident (AMP) Society built an office tower on The Terrace, Wellington. Designed by Architecture firm Stephenson & Turner, with involvement from Guy Ngan, the principal tenant was the multinational technology company, IBM.

AMP ran a competition for a sculpture to be installed in the building. Christchurch art educator and sculptor Tom Taylor won the commission against submissions from New Zealand, Australia and England.

As a result Taylor produced his largest known work, an abstract fusion of sculpture and architecture. The sculpture was fabricated in a Christchurch engineering works out of corrosion-resistant corten steel, and by April 1971, it had been mounted on The Terrace (west) side of the building in the ground floor portico between the front doors and the south-west corner.

The work comprised two linear structural forms on the outside of the building that curved from vertical to horizontal axes before merging and extending through a gap in the glass curtain wall to a corner of the lobby. In April 1971, the work was sketched and reviewed by architect Martin Hill for his Wellington Townscape column in The Dominion newspaper. He described it as "...a sensitively shaped vigorous form", which rewarded repeat viewing.

The sculpture was one of a group of art objects commissioned for the building. The foyer also featured a painting by John Drawbridge, a group of four hand-sewn yellow leather chairs by Guy Ngan, a glass slab table, and a hand-woven carpet by Joan Calvert.

The last known image of the work was taken in August 1975. Plans from 1980 indicate that planters in the portico on both sides of the front doors were to be filled in, however they do not show the work, which had been mounted next to the southern planter and went over it to reach the lobby. This suggests Taylor's sculpture had been removed before the plan was drawn up but exactly when the work was removed, and what happened to it remains a mystery. It is presumed to have been destroyed.

Both the indoor and outdoor spaces that the sculpture originally occupied have since been modified. By August 1982, the south side of the lobby had been enclosed as a showroom for IBM office equipment, and the portico and a paved space south of the building were enclosed by a one-storey extension between 1993 and 2006.

Radio New Zealand replaced IBM as the principal tenant in 1997 and renamed the building Radio New Zealand House.

See also:

• ‘Sculptures and Otago Arts', The Press (Christchurch), 21 July 1970, p. 11

• ‘Sculpture For New Building’, Christchurch: The Press, 8 Sep 1970 (via Papers Past)

• Martin Hill, ‘IBM Centre on the Terrace', Wellington Townscape, The Dominion Weekend Magazine, 17 April 1971, p. 15

• 'Buildings by Stephenson and Turner', National Library of New Zealand, ref. PAColl-9842-40

• 'IBM House', National Library of New Zealand—Taken from The Terrace in 1972, the work is the horizontal form in the nearest corner of the building.

• Wellington City Council Online Archive, citation 00277-21470 (4/-), pp. 103–105

• '[Aerial photograph survey number C8397 A/21', Retrolens, 26 February 1988—A better angle and more detailed than the 1993 photograph but not the latest.

• 'Aerial photograph survey number C9271 Q/1', Retrolens, 20 January 1993—The latest known photograph of the front of the IBM Centre before it was extended. The building is slightly left of centre with two trees by its top-right (north-west) corner. Note the paved space around the top-left (south-west) corner containing a circular walled opening into the basement carpark, part of which is visible.

• 'Radio New Zealand House', Wikimedia Commons, 29 September 2006—The earliest known photograph of the front of the building after it was extended. Note the frontage across the former paved space to the right (south).