PLANS OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1098, 10 April 1911, Page 6

PLANS OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

A CHARGE OF INCONSISTENCY

Apart from the recent expression of opinion by a deputation of architect-: in Cliristchurch who waited upon the Minister for Public Works, the Nov.- Zealand Architects' Institute has not yet mad? any official pronouncement as* to tho conditions under which tho Government is inviting competitive designs for the new Parliament Buildings. No doubt this reticence is due to the fact that tho Institute is in communication with the Government upon the subject. Individual architects, however, are by no means averse to pointedly expressing their opinion of the attitude taken up by tho Government. One architect, speaking to a reporter on Saturday, advanced a charge of Departmental inconsistency. When the Public Trust Office was opened in Wellington, ho remarked, Mr. Campbell (Government Architect) stated that his staff was. sufficiently numerous and well organised to cope* with any public business that could conic along. In view of this statement it was scarcely consistent of thn Department to place the architectural work of the Government buildings at. Cliristchurch in the hands of a private firm. Yet this was done. Questioned on the subject in tli? House, the Minister for Public Works stated, without making any reference to competitions, (hat the work had been entrusted to a private firm owing to pressure, of work upon the Departmental architects.

The architect above mentioned went on to remark: "Now we have just heard that the Public Trust Office, in Auckland is nlso to bo entrusted, without competition, to a private firm, and a Wellington firm at that. It had been suggested, that the work had been given out on the ground that it must be entrusted to a specialist in reinforced concrete construction. To accept (his hypothesis, however, would involve a tcucction on tho Departmental staff. Probably the actual reason addiieod would be as in the rasp of the Government buildings at C'hristclinrch, that Hie Department, had more work in hand than it could conveniently carry out."

This, the architect went on to say, did not square with the statement made by Mr. Campbell when, the Public Trust building in Wellington was opened. Neither did it square with the fact that Mr. Campbell had timo to prepare competitive designs for the new Parliament Buildings, aided, no doubt, by Government assistant*, and so on. "Presumably," concluded the architect, "the designing ef r>. building in public competition, should he regarded as a mattter outside the province of the Department, altogether. The Government should at. least adopt a defined attitude. If pressure of work (on the Department) necessitated the invitation of competitive designs from outside architects, tho officers of the Department should, in reason, be excluded from the competition."