THE PRESS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1988. Art gallery plan revisited

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 20

THE PRESS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1988. Art gallery plan revisited

The Christchurch City Council’s cultural and community services committee has declared a site at the junction of Worcester Street and Rolleston Avenue, opposite the Canterbury Museum and the Arts Centre, as the preferred location for a civic art gallery. The committee hesitated to recommend the proposal immediately to the full council for adoption, deciding instead to delay this until November, by which time the public will have had the opportunity to comment. The proposal does not come out of the blue; the site was recommended to the council three years ago. Most people interested in the future of the art gallery will have formed their opinions by now. Over the years most have come to the conclusion that a site somewhere in that general area is to be preferred, because the grouping of art gallery, museum, arts centre, Botanic Gardens, and the existing Robert McDougall Art Gallery would compose a desirable recreational and cultural zone close to the centre of the city. To the council, one of the . chief attractions of the proposed site is that it already owns most of the land that would be required. The site of the youth hostel there and the adjoining car park belong to the city. This gives the site an advantage over several others that have been considered. Even so, extra land will have to be found and that is not without difficulties. The owner of the land to the north, one of the only two ways in which the site can be extended, is not ready to sell; to the east are three properties on which are buildings listed in the City Plan as worthy of preservation. The site also has a residential zoning and would require a specified departure to enable its use for a gallery. These obstacles may not be insurmountable if the site is finally chosen. Other sites should not be ruled out if undue problems arise. One possibility, not among the seven specifically put before the committee this week, might be the land east of the stone buildings of the Christchurch Arts Centre. No doubt this site also has its drawbacks; but a new gallery here, with frontages on Hereford, Montreal, and Worcester Streets, would have the splendid advantage of seeing off the unsightly prefabricated building that has cluttered the site ever since its erection as a temporary measure to ease crowding at the university decades ago. The chief point is that the decision cannot be delayed for much longer. The Robert McDougall Art Gallery has pretty

much the same space for display as it had 56 years ago when it opened, and when, because a better site could not be agreed upon, it was imprisoned in the Botanic Gardens and had no room to grow. Too many of the works in the permanent collection are stored where they cannot be seen. Even the provision of this storage space has required mole-like burrowing around the gallery’s foundations. In addition, the gallery has striven with some success to be included in the circuit of travelling exhibitions. The popularity of these exhibitions has meant even more pressure on the space available for the permanent collection, which has grown from just 200 works in 1932 to almost 4000 today. Because the gallery is functioning to the limits imposed by the building’s age and design, more and more money is required just to maintain it. Even so, it is proving inadequate for the public’s demands upon it and for the future care of a growing collection. A new gallery is not likely to be built for many years. On the site endorsed by the council’s cultural and community services committee, for instance, no work can begin before the Youth Hostels Association lease expires in 1995. The gallery also comes at the tail end of, a period of civic rebuilding in Christchurch, which began with the Town Hall and has included a new public library and a large extension and big alterations to the museum, as well as the finding of a new home for the civic offices. From time to time it has been argued that decisions on the art gallery should be deferred until the new structure of local government for the city is in existence. This need not be so; indeed, for reasons already accepted by almost everyone, a new gallery is needed and the availability of suitable sites is limited to a few in a relative handful of city blocks. The decision should be made soon so that some planning can begin as soon as possible, even if the details and final approval must belong to a new authority. Designation of a site will also provide a focus for fund-raising. A firm decision on the site will make it much easier to attract bequests and grants from the business community towards a new gallery. The new local government organisation for Christchurch, whatever its shape, will have an important part to play in bringing the plans to fruition. Christchurch has put off the building of a new gallery for many years now. A good way to mark the birth of a government structure that is intended to take the city into the twenty-first century would be a new art gallery that could do the same.