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Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19462, 8 November 1928, Page 4

(By "Builder.")

"Builder" invites contributions from reader! on any matter! of interest which they might like to propose. Correspondence on various subjects pertaining to building will also be accepted.

NOTES.

For October the value of the buildings authorised by the Christchurch City Council was £47,599, as compared with £63,702 in the corresponding month of 1927. Of the 103 permits issued, 44 were for houses.

Mr B. LovelkSmith, Architect, 134 Hereford street, is receiving tenders until 4 p.m. on November 14th for the erection in wood of a two-storey house at Riccarton.

Tenders will be received at the Pub* lie Works Department, Christchurch, until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 20th, for paintihg and repairs at Amberley Courthouse.

The' principal of the Christchurch Technical. College is inviting tenders, closing at 6 p.m. on November 16th, for the construction of two classrooms and other additions at the Technical College, Barbadoos street.

Tenders will be received at the Public Works Department, Christchurch, until 4 p.m. On Tuesday, November 20th, for painting and repairs to'Wood«nd Post Office.

A new metal tower which is to be erected at the coming international Exhibition at Barcelona will be more than 1300 ft High, or over 300 ft taller than the •Eiffel- Tower- in Paris. The tower will have hotels, a museum, a reading' room, and a wireless station.

A report from American sources states that .large quantities of German, Japanese, and American newspapers are being imported into certain districts of China, where they are eagerly bought by the natives and used as coverings for their walls. High prices are said to be given, as tnucn as thirty-five dollars a ton being asked and obtained. If this report is to be relied .upon, it provides us with a curious reversal of facts, for it. will bo remembered that, what it is customary to describe as Chinese "wallpapers," which were imported into England In the eighteenth century, were not, in point or fact, used by the Chinese themselves as wallpapers, butwere utilised by them in connexion with their funeral rites. It almost seems as if Eastern and Western ideas as to what really constitutes a wallpaper are no nearer agreement.

One of the historic land-marks of Wellington City is to be demolished in order ; that it may give- - place to premisesVmore in keeping With modern retoireinenfc.' It, i«: the Albert Hotal--beW known tt. "TKe Old Identities '>-a,t the cbrnetf VM. Willis street; and Boulcott itrifttf? ?Arrangements, hare bqen made by* company to take over the old wooden building and ereot ; on the site -inj perman-ent-material an , eight-storey building to be known as the '/Hotel .Majesties the plan's' for _ which have been prepared by- Mr W. J. 'Prouse, wbofis also architect of the new Majestic Theatre in course of erection, a..few. doors further down the street. Provision is to be made in the new hotel,for SOO guest rooms, with ten shops on the street, front, and within, lounges) writing-rooms, and all the appurtenances of a first-class modern hotel. The spacious dining-room will be capable of accommodating 350 people. A feature of,the existing old wooden building is the series of reproductions of heads of" well-known people associated with.the colonisation of -Wellington which form artificial keystones to the window arches on the Willis street and Boulcott street frontages. At the highest point of. the facade is a wooden statue of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the founder of Welling- j ton.—"New Zealand Decorator."