BEAUTY AND UTILITY.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 71, 24 March 1919, Page 7

BEAUTY AND UTILITY.

AIMS OF TOWN PLANNERS. MR. HURST SEAGER'S LECTURE. Modern town-planning principles and their realisation in other lands formed tlie subject of a most interesting lecture delivered on Saturday night in the Town Hall concert chamber by Mr. S. Hurst-S<-;igcr, F.R.1.8.A., honorary organiser of the Town Planning Conference which is to be held at Wellington in May under tne auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Cr. Mice E. Melville presided. The attendance, unfortunately, wael small. ' I

The lecturer, who had a very large, ec ilretion of lantern slides illustrating all branches of his subject, dealt with tin- principles upon .which healthful and beautiful garden cities have been built ; n England and elsewhere. He explained m detail the methods of laying out large iireas of land with roads Inot too wide) suited to the contours of the ground and giving the best access to important points-. Roads, he explained, were made much more attractive by being curved, and if straight they would be made le*s iii'inotonouis if they were broken by open spaces here and there. He strongly advocated the planting of trees, of which, he said, there were no less than 100.000 in the streets of Paris. The economy of crowding houses in terraces on to are.is i>! land was a fallacy, for the reason that so much had to be spent in forming the network of roads on such a property raised the total cost of the scheme so much tl at the landlord could buy twice or three times as much land for his scheme and lay out the settlement on propei lines without Increasing his exprnuiture. The lecturer showed numbers of photographs of the garden settlements of Letchworth, Tort Sunlignt, Bournville, and elsewhere, and illustrated his remarks by moans of plans. It was necessary to distinguish, lie sud, between three sorts of garden settlement —the garden city, the garden su'.iurb, and the industrial garden village, lii'in nville and Port Sunlight were e\-

simple*, of the last. The i.lea of a garden suburb was a fairly self-contained settlement, with good means of communication with a city, but separated from the latter I>v a broad belt of agricultural land.

Dealing with the garden suburb of Dneeyvilie, near Sydney. Mr. Seagor eaid that a syndicate had bought 700 acres of land at £65 an acre, and bad built several hundred cottage? on modern lines. The**- it found itself able to let for 18/(1 n week, the return to tin. , shareholders, several photographs of typical homes at being 4J per cent. He showed a plan and Daceyville, and as a contrast showed one of some inferior old buildings within half a mile or so let for 22/8 a week. Amongst other slides shown was a graphic dia<rrajn of the doath-rate in English garden settlements and in typical English and Now Zealand towns. The garden settlement figures were alnjut half thoso of the four New Zealand centres.

As a contract to systematic modern methods Mr. Seager 'showed slides o! typical streets in New Zealand towns, and pointed out their many unbeautiful feature*. He also regretted the failure of itfi people to utilise the natural beauties of Auckland in laying the city out. He depifred the bad conditions in New Zealand mining settlements, many ot •which he had visited, and declared that it was the imperative duty of the Government to provide proper housing for the miners instead of the miserable shacks in which they and their families now had to live. 1

A hearty vote of thanks was passed to the lecturer, who answered a number of questions.