A GRAND PROJECT

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 189, 12 May 1928, Page 8

A GRAND PROJECT

NATIONAL ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM

NOBLE SITE TO COME INTO ITS OWN

By donating £15,000 to the fund to erect on Mount Cook a National Art Gallery and Museum the City Council has given a fillip to a project of immense importance to the cultural future of Wellington and its people. In the first instance this conspicuous and commanding site seemed by fortuitous circumstances to have been reserved through decades of time for some such purpose. Mount Cook —as the hill which overlooks the whole of Te Aro Flat has been called for half a century—was originally appreciably higher than it is to-day. Its reduction was due to the hill being formed of clay particularly suitable for brick-making, and for a quarter- of a century it was industrially hacked at by prison gangs and private companies for the fine yellow spoil it yielded to the kilns, and no inconsiderable proportion of Wellington’s earlier brick structures are formed from Mount Cook clay. For over a decade gangs of prisoners from the Terrace Gaol were marched daily to the site to delve the earth and bake good red bricks therefrom, one direct result of the products being the great gaol which has disfigured the site for over thirty years. This was subsequently converted to the use of the Alexandra Military Barracks and Depot, still located there. But the site, much too valuable for such a purpose, is now to fulfil its real destiny, and what has been more or less of an eyesore has been made available for a nobler purpose. Who can doubt that? The Dominion Museum and National Art Gallery is a twenty-year-old dream about to come true.

Challenge to Public-spirited Citizens.

Wellington City is pledged to raise £lOO,OOO to meet the Government’s offer of a similar amount. This is n challenge to all in Wellington. From time to time visitors, in criticising Wellington, have been inclined to sense a lack of civic pride in the Empire City; but recent developments have largely helped to remove that stigma. Tlie new project will provide the means of demonstrating that Wellington has not only a special pride of her own. but may possibly set a new standard in the establishment of a great institutional edifice far removed from the material. i

The question is, Can it be done? The Mayor (Mr. G. A. Troup) says it can. He is optimistic as to the response. His reasons for that attitude of mind will be explained to the meeting of the original committee to be held on Monday afternoon, and to a meeting of all interested in the Council Chamer on Tuesday night, when he will impart news of much moment.