NEW SKY-LINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 284, 30 November 1928, Page 9

NEW SKY-LINE.

CHANGES IN QUEEN STREET. "STEADY UPWARD TENDEHCT" MODERN BUILDING ERA. Somebody in facetious vein once said that the nearest thing to perpetual motion was Queen Street in Auckland, an opinion possibly formed by the fact the footpaths and roadways are generally in a state of either being pulled up or put down, while there is always something to be found in the way of a barricade blotting out half of the sidewalk during the reconstruction of some building. The sky-line of Queen Street is everehanging, the only prospect of uniformity being that all buildings may eventually reach the maximum sky-line limit Imposed by a City Council which is not anxious that city buildings shall soar in the manner of those of Los Angles and New York. Maybe, by the time that the hundred-foot or thereabouts altitude and unformity line is reached, the Auckland building.limit may be notched up a hundred feet or so, and so there is a prospect that the upward tendency may be something in the nature of an ""fi-™** quantity. They didn't bother about building regulations jn the very early days of Auckland when the finest building was the raupo hut with the best thatched roof, and it in turn was followed by rows of one-storeyed wooden buildings along the banks of the creek which used to flow just about where the Queen Street tramlines are now. The twostoreyed wooden building followed a* a matter of course, and there are a few of them still in existence, looking puny where they are flanked by the modern semi-sky scraper. Quite a number of things have pushed Queen Street buildings in the upward direction. Valuations have been steadily changing as the years go on, with a corresponding increase in city taxation, and with severely prescribed territorial limits, expansion has been naturally in one direction, particularly for the reason that in a building era of steel welding and concrete the modern struc-

tore—even with ornate facade and pillars—takes definite shape in a very short time indeed. Of late Queen Street has afforded quite a number of striking illustrations of up-to-date demolition methods preparatory to search for sure foundations and erection of new buildings of the pleasing plain kind which seem to be mushroom in growth, yet wonderfully substantial in frame. Aucklanders have got used to the steady and monotonous tapping of the pneumatic drill, and at times have developed stiff necks through watching workers on dizzy perches, climbing round scaffolding, or doing balancing feats on cornices. The modern way is to hoist everything to its appointed place, and one can look in vain for the handy man of another generation, who used to scale high ladders with a hodful of bricks neatly poised 6n one shoulder. Of recent years the sky-line building has given Queen Street quite a distinctive appearance. The latest to reach the final stage is the Colonial Mutual pile near the junction of Wyndham Street, while a stone's throw away, at the corner of Durham Street, the Auckland Power Board's new and impressive premises are well under way. Of late several new materials have come into use for building purposes. One of the main modifications, compared with comparatively recent years, is the large use of steel with its consequent enormous resistance to tensidnal stresses. There is no doubt that the architecture of the future is destined to be largely devoid of ornamentation. It will be courted to a large extent for its aesthetic value on the relative placing, not only of the parts of the particular building considered, but also in the placing of the particular building in relation to other components, of a Queen Street scheme. To-day the tensional strength of steel monolithic construction has banished the possibility of lateral thrust, and there has arisen in the building world a scheme to fulfil the dreams of a "teneional" aesthetic