Anxiety To Keep Fine Arts School At Ham

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 12

Anxiety To Keep Fine Arts School At Ham

Any attempt to isolate the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts from the developing campus at Ilam will be opposed by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips).

“I am firmly of the opinion that the School of Fine Arts should be rehoused in a new building on the Ilam site as only in that way can it be properly integrated with the university,” Professor Phillips said. “To isolate it elsewhere would impoverish the school and the university as a whole.”

Informal discussions he had held with the chairman of the University Grants Commis-

sion (Sir Alan Danks) on the rebuilding of the School of Fine Arts had not reached a satisfactory conclusion, Professor Phillips said. “The present situation of the school remains very difficult; and although some

money has been made available by the University Grants Committee for use at the school these are only temporary measures expedients which in no way solve the long-term problem. “In the higher levels of work at the school there will be a need for co-operation in industrial design which would link it with the School of En-

gineering and the School of Forestry,” he said. “Also since the decision

was made to accept Art History as a subject for 8.A., it is highly desirable that the School of Fine Arts be near the arts faculty.” Although there had been three occasions on which the university had approached the University Grants Committee for some decision on the future of the School of Fine Arts these moves, had been rebuffed, Professor Phillips said.

The Government were not to blame, he said, as the Government had never had any recommendations on the school’s future from the University Grants Committee.