CIVIC CENTRE AND ART GALLERY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 8

CIVIC CENTRE AND ART GALLERY

WELLINGTON’S NEEDS After a tour of England, the Continent, and America, Mr. W. Gray Young, the Wellington architect, who has just returned to New Zealand, is much impressed by the modern developments in town planning which he has seen, and is convinced that Wellington must have a civic centre. Mr. Young was struck by the fact that, if plans have not already been prepared and now being executed, cities have put tlie preparation of schemes ol civic betterment in hand. Provincial cities in -England are taking action; while in the United States Los Angeles has spent millions of dollars in making a civic centre, and Vancouver is discussing where the civic centre should be situated and in what manner it should be laid out. The sooner the problem is tackled in Wellington, says Mr. Gray Young, the better it will be. If the City Council would decide now where the civic centre is to be and how it- should be laid out the work need not necessarily be begun, but all preparations could be made for giving effect to the plans and surrounding works determined accordingly. Concurrently with the decision to establish a civic centre there must be a determination to create an art gallerv, said Dlr. Young. During his travels he noticed how travellers immediately sought gardens and art galleries, and he holds it the duty of the capital city to set about the erection of an art gallery of a kind which would do it justice and to make that gallery as attractive as possible to visitors. Motorists wild have traversed the shortened route to Mercury Bay via Tapu (states the. Thames “Star") are loud in their praises of its scenic beauties and of tho expert manner in which the new road has been formed, and graded by the officials of the Public Works Department. The route previously used necessitated a 50-mile journey from Thames via Kerita on the Thames coast, at which point the route turned into steeply-graded hill country. This road is still in use, but has been badly cut up in recent months by motor-lorries carrying fish supplies to Thames.