ART GALLERY SITE

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19317, 23 May 1928, Page 8

ART GALLERY SITE

MAYOR DEFENDS CHOICE. GENERAL MISAPPREHENSION ? The controversy that has lately raged around the new Art Gallery site, and which one might have supposed was safely buried, was revived by Thacker at last night's meeting of the Jubilee Executive Committee. "The Memorial Committee wishes publicly to regret," Dr. 1 hacker said, "that an alternative site was not procured. It is exceedingly sorry because it thiAks that the present site behind the Museum is a ghastly iauure a fiß Tho Mavor (Mr J. K. Archer) said that he could not allow that statement to pass without replying. ' I venture to say," he proceeded, "that not two per cent, of the citizens of Christchurch know where the proposed site is, ann I don't believe the members of the Memorial Committee know. The idea seems to be that tho Gallery is to be put at the back of tho whale house. There could be nothing further from the truth than that: I took a representative public man to see the site the otlier day and he was absolutely astonished. As a matter of fact the Art Gallery and Museum will never be seen together, and there is a long distance between them. The Museum and the whale house are on the flat and the Art Gallery will be on a mound. It is a very beautiful site and I venture to say practically everyone who has written to the newspapers disapproving of it is ignorant of its exact whereabouts. Mr F. L. Hutchinson, another member of the Memorial Committee, said that his point was that the distance of the site from the centre of the town made it unsuitable. The .way to get to know a picture and to get good out of it was to become familiar with it, and for that reason alone he thought that the Gallery should not be in the Gardens at all, but right in the City, like a shrine. To put it on the site proposed would be a blunder. Mr D. G. Sullivan asked if it were true that the Gallery would be several eli'iins away from tne Museum. T !ie Mayor: Yes. Mr Archer added that in his opinion ) lie people who would rise the Art Gal'<3T on account of its being in the would be ten times more than if it had been in the City. Thousands of people visited the every day in the summer, and on holidays, and they would all pass the Art Gallery from the main gate. The meeting then went on with the next business.