New Facilities For Museum

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30277, 1 November 1963, Page 15

New Facilities For Museum

A notable addition will be made to the facilities of the Canterbury Museum when the garden court and coffee bar opens to the public on December 3. The official opening of the court and the new hall of biology will take place on December 2. Since 1955 there has been a continual expansion of the museum’s gallery displays, which are designed to interest a wide section of the community. At least 40,000 school children visit the museum for conducted tours and lessons each year. The lecture

theatre is used by outside organisations on an average of four nights a week, and the planetarium is an educational facility which few museums can offer.

The policy of the Museum Trust Board was to make the museum a cultural centre for the whole of the community, tlie director (Dr. R. S. Duff) said yesterday. The provision of a coffee bar was specially planned as a service to the many family groups w’hich visited the museum. At a later date the board will consider the feasibility

of providing direct access to tile garden court from the McDougall Art Gallery, to integrate further the gallery and the museum. In planning the garden court the architect, Mr H. Helmore, has kept in mind the possibility of the area being used for open-air sculpture exhibitions by students of the School of Fine Arts or other sculptors.

Conditions of tender are at present available to caterers interested in the coffee bar. In the expectation that the new facilities will be well

patronised, the board has required that service will be offered at least from the beginning of the August school holidays until the end of the May holidays and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ice-creams, milk-shakes, soft drinks, tea and coffee, pies, sandwiches, cakes, savouries and cigarettes will be sold, although no eating or smoking will be permitted in the museum itself. The approximate attendance for Use ten-month period in which the coffee bar will be open is estimated at 93,500 people.