Hunter Macdonald was remanded on bail until the end of the month without entering a plea.

A man charged over breaking a well-loved Len Lye sculpture on the Wellington waterfront is still waiting to hear how much reparation he might be asked to pay.

Hunter Laurie Browne Macdonald, 29, of Te Aro appeared in Wellington District Court on Friday and his lawyer Carrie Parkin asked for a remand without plea.

Parkin said there was still some dispute about how much the reparation amount should be.

STUFF Hunter Macdonald apologises to Wellington for snapping the Len Lye waterfront sculpture.

The Water Whirler sculpture was worth $300,000 and earlier this week the director of the Len Lye Foundation said replacing it would cost between $35,000 and $50,000 to repair.

READ MORE:

* Boredom lead to broken sculpture stunt

* Len Lye sculpture broken

* Artist would have been deeply hurt by broken work

Judge Peter Hobbs remanded Macdonald on bail until the end of the month without entering a plea.

Len Lye Foundation director Evan Webb said they wanted to produce three new wands because the cost to manufacture them one-by-one was so high.

It is likely to be fixed next year.

Macdonald has said publicly he was "bored out of my mind" while walking along Wellington's waterfront, when he came across the Water Whirler sculpture – which cost about $300,000 at the time of installation in 2006.

KEVIN STENT/STUFF The man charged over the breaking of a Len Lye sculpture on Wellington's waterfront has appeared in court on Friday, but was remanded on bail without plea.

"I decided to stop and sort of attempt some sort of gymnastic, acrobatic stuff on the sculpture".

Historian Roger Horrocks, who was Lye's personal assistant in the final year of his life, said the artist would have been "deeply hurt by the sheer idiocy" of the person who saw it as just a climbing frame - and not a work of art.

SUPPLIED A Wellington sculpture worth an estimated $300,000 was broken in two in October.