£50,000 BUILDING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 297, 16 December 1935, Page 11

£50,000 BUILDING.

ARCHITECTS' AWARD. NEW WELLINGTON LIBRARY. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.* WELLINGTON, this day. Messrs. Messenger, Taylor and Wolfe, of New Plymouth) and Gummcr and Ford and partners, of Auckland, share the first and second prizes in plans for the new Wellington Central Library, and have agreed to collaborate. This is certain to mean the re-drawing of the plans, incorporating the best features of both. The prize shared by the two firms of architects were for plans for the new Wellington Public Library in Mercer Street, opposite the present library buildings. The designs were for a building to cost approximately £50,000. It is stated that the placing of two firms equal, and their agreement to collaborate on the redrawing of plans is a most unusual procedure and one that will create a good deal of interest among New Zealand architects. Messrs. Guramer and Ford have won a number of competitions, including that for the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

The schedule of the competition set out a number of special features which were to be incorporated into the plans. The. building was to be of two storeys with a basement, and was to be set back from the street with the ground terraced in the front. In the basement was to be the lecture hall and offices. The building was to have a frontage of 300 ft and was to cover the whole block back to the next street.

Provision was to be made for several elevators—one passenger, one-goods and three book elevators. Special features of the building were contained in the specifications for tlie children's room, music room and reference library. The children's department was to consist of two rooms with an additional one set out as a kind of nursery, where, children could be looked after and where they could best be tol'd those fairy and other such tales that children love.