Named Already The Beehive

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 1

Named Already The Beehive

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 1. The proposed circular, domed concept for the completion of Parliament Buildings already has a name the beehive. The name was given by Sir Basil Spence at the press conference.

Mr Holyoake said the “beehive” concept would be carried to the sketch plan stage as a next step in the scheme. “I can confidently say the Cabinet will support the committee in its decision,” said the Prime Minister, referring to the production of sketch plans. On view in the Prime Min

ister’s office, where the conference took place, were photographs of the model prepared at the direction of Sir Basil Spence and the model itself set among other models showing existing and proposed buildings that will form or may form part of the Government centre.

Sir Basil Spence’s three weeks’ stay in New Zealand will end on Friday when he will leave for the United States.

Replying to questions before an audience of nine journalists and 10 photographers, Sir Basil Spence said: “This building will never be reproduced because the considerations of labour will never come back. It will also represent the New Zealand Parliamentary tradition,” he said. He attributed the circular concept to the thought that Parliament Building was the hub or universal joint. He said that he had been influenced in his task by the site, which he considered unsuitable for symmetrical building. Such a building, he said, would appear to be slipping down the hill.

Sir Basil Spence considered the site was “wonderful” from the windows of the proposed building, as from the present building. The crowded shipping wharves and the whole life and movement of Wellington could be seen.

“I like to call it a beehive,” he said. There was no structure elsewhere similar to that he proposed, he said. “The Model” He recalled that Pericles in the fifth century B.C. told the Athenians: “We don’t imitate —we are the model for others.”

Asked if he had designed any parliamentary building for any of the newly emerging countries, Sir Basil Spence said: “One parliament and one cathedral in a lifetime is enough.” (Sir Basil Spence was the architect of the new Coventry Cathedral.) “The architect is Mr Sheppard,” said Sir Basil Spence. “I am so far the partial consultant. I have been asked to advise on the possibilities. This is only the anatomy of an idea, the germ of an idea,’ said Sir Basil Spence.