‘Encouraging’ Response To Museum Appeal

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32351, 17 July 1970, Page 14

‘Encouraging’ Response To Museum Appeal

A “most encouraging” re sponse to the appeal for funds to build the new wing at the Canterbury Museum was referred to by the director (Dr R. S. Duff) at the Museum Trust Board’s meeting yester day “I hope by 1972 it will have reached about $130,000,” he said.

The arrival of many gifts before the launching of the appeal had been a very significant factor, another being several personal gifts. There had been some apprehension that the new plans might mean the elimination of the garden court. Dr Duff said. In the first stage of construction of a twostoreyed block, expected to begin in 1972, the garden court and coffee bar would be preserved in their present form. “When, in the more indefinite future, the final two storeys are added it should then be possible to raise the garden court to a roof garden at the second-floor level, and use the space below as an extension of displays,” Dr Duff said. During the recent Royal visit when a function was held in the museum, Dr Duff said he realised that “half the distinguished visitors from Christchurch” had not] been in the museum for years.

“There are still probably many thousands of Christchurch residents who. not having seen the museum since the provincial wing was opened in 1955, are unaware of the effects of our non-stop display programme.” he said. This programme had transformed the traditional image of a museum as a “dull repository of bones, stuffed animals, fossils, and native curios,” he said.