THE CHANGING WATERFRONT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1927, Page 6

THE CHANGING WATERFRONT.

Strange as it may seem to those wLj have matched with smouldering hearts the gradual uis figurement of Auckland's waterfront, thcr-.' arc people in other countries who—not being altogether blind to beauty or entirely enzrossed in the material—have managed to combine art with utility. They have not allowed to work unchecked the vandal hand of a gross commercialism, to make havoc of what has been videa by nature to beautify their environment: rather have they sought to* blend the necessities of the modern age with the wonder works of the Creator, fitting in the little things they do with the grand planning of the Architect of the Universe, humbly and with all deference, in the realisation that not even the proudest structure of man could approach the perfect formation of the smallest shell upon the seashore. \\ here Nature has been grudging in its gifts, art has been asked to aid, and art has sought to clothe Cinderella in more harmonious garb, modelling her dress on that of her more richly endowed sisters. But in Auckland—at least in so far as the unaesthetic authorities who administer our affairs are concerned—art and utility are incompatible Progress is set up as a god and worshipped— a recasting of the Golden Calf. We live in a utilitarian atmosphere, in which art withers and dies, and nature is ruthlessly defaced ear s agone—long, long ago," it seems—the There 8 an I Waite ™ ata ri Ppled on to sandv shores and broke in shimmering foam against the th?hr«n^ r Pr fM h f* dl «d 8 upon Which waved the branches of the kingly pohutukawa, scarletblossomed and glad. Gone are the peasant shallow saDd * Dd ShiDgle ' gone the spreading W " on ! u the . rocks w "hich made picturesque w»b 6VI thC , httlC ba * vs " are covered adS ° f " du mP>" carted with , tol ' * or , th * lr obliteration. Gone are the headlands and the pohutukawas. blasted down to drne back the waters and smother the shelving leveTledln Th~ T'*\ a ? ain —smashed and felled in the interests of "reclamation." a word ade sacred, and ever piously uttered, by the progressn-e gentlemen who constitute" our t 01 " n K, tarl f an Auckland Harbour Board of the AFTS fc this watchword and password °L , * AJLB \ should be spelt -wreck/' for a wretched wreck indeed has been made of the erstwhile beauty of our waterfront. Survey that area below the railway station and stretching north of Quay Street, and from Parnell ridge to the high land that represents what was ,°j? C - e . P ° lnt t!ampbell_that beautiful headland which has been blasted away in the precious interests of -reclamation." It is a scene of sheer the'™? h ugliness, a colourless horror, made the more depressing by the sordid-looking buildthf S I w r , lS , e from its awful mis-make—with the skeleton-like structure of a new amusement resort in comic relief—the whole "a carefully planned outrage on art and nature, in the interests of a commercialism that has no fine feelings " as a writer in the "Star" observed some two or three years ago. is , a depressing enough spectacle from the city side; from the harbour the sight, to tho*e sh ° re fore * "Wberf" ' i lB Cn ° Ugh make one weep, bin lon I 5 e L Aucklanders who have been long absent, where is Point Campbell'" and Wn ln I . ndl?nant horror as the shattered headland is pointed out to them. The beauty of our Auckland waterfront has SeVw S 6aCrifiCed ° D the altar of utihtv rntle d °"° "* innovations o? !, fnllxM r.TT, -i ™ alism and (crowning pusb out ™f gre .Sf; nd th ; , or ' e X?vi° sltz ; EfEsrs a s: «•* " ith rsLSLgn 5 the harbour £ J eVe IJ headland and fill in half have bi T P° rt of Auckland misht £n *£ it, be.St.r foreshore —F.U.