The Press TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1969. Civic Centre Plans

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32118, 14 October 1969, Page 16

The Press TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1969. Civic Centre Plans

The Christchurch City Council should think twice, and then again, before committing itself to the. proposed change in the siting of the civic administration building and council chamber in Victoria Square. It appears to be a short-sighted expedient which would postpone, probably indefinitely, the full development of the town hall and civic centre site. Indeed, it seems to imply the abandonment of all hope of giving shape and substance to the inspiring vision conjured up by Professor Gordon Stephenson in 1962 and enthusiastically welcomed by Christchurch people and citizens of areas contributing to the town hall project Professor Stephenson declared Victoria Square to be the best site for a civic centre only if the plan for development along Kilmore Street, from Colombo Street to Durham Street, was . regarded as “ indivisible If this proposition was not acceptable, he said, other sites should be preferred, presumably as more suitable to a less ambitious scheme.

The soundness of his advice becomes even more obvious now that the Mayor, Mr Guthrey, is pressing for the early construction of the administration block —a building higher than the Bank of New Zealand building in Cathedral Square—within a few yards of the river bank. The proposal is a strange one in the light of the concern recently expressed in Christchurch over reports that the new buildings for the Justice Department might encroach upon adjacent riverside lawns. By abandoning the proposed car park beneath a paved square between Kilmore Street and the tower block the council would deny the town hall an essential facility and excuse itself from the liability for parking space it imposes on other builders.

The Christchurch architects who won the competition for the design of the town hall and civic centre produced a superb plan for the site. Their inclusion of a library building was something of a bonus —though at some cost to the Stephenson ideal of enlarging Victoria Square. Mr Guthrey’s arguments in favour of a more central site for the library should have led the council to invite the architects to improve the scheme by restoring the administration building to the site first proposed for it at the junction of Kilmore and Durham Streets. Professor Stephenson, in proposing this site, foresaw the one-way street system and the advantage of closing Victoria Street If councillors are in any doubt about the effect of placing a 14-storey building close to the centre of the square they should study perspective drawings and a revised model of the site. They would surely see that they have asked the architects to devise a money-saving alternative to buying more land that will defeat the main purpose of the scheme. It might, indeed, cause the whole project to be halted once the administration block is completed. In the process they will have obscured the most important feature of the square—the town hall buildings—increased the complications of traffic flow, shaded, in winter, a large area of roadway, river, and lawn, and drastically narrowed the original vision of the civic centre.