DRAB OUTLOOK

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 195, 15 May 1936, Page 13

DRAB OUTLOOK

National Art Gallery Neighbourhood SLUMS IN FOREGROUND Mr. Troup’s Street-widening Plans After three years the last touches have been administered to the finest building in New Zealand, the new National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum, which stands on Mount Cook, Wellington, an eminence one hundred feet above’ the road level and overlooking practically the whole of tlie capital city of New Zealand ami the harbour which Ims made it one of the great ports of the Empire. While, the site is ideal, and vistas superb, the grounds extensive and the building on a scale never dreamt of in the minds of the most optimistic of Wellington’s citizens outside a small circle of enthusiasts for art, this national structure has its drawbacks, in the drab and altogether depressing neighbourhood from which Mount Cook rises. These drawbacks are not insuperable.’ Indubitably they must be removed, sooner or later. They lie in the approach to the site. Prom the centre of the city the direct approach to the Art Gallery is either by Taranaki Street or Tory Street, both of which thoroughfares have been sadly neglected, while other parts of Wellington have forged ahead architecturally and otherwise. The greater part of central Te Aro flat yet remains to be rebuilt. The buildings of the second generation are now fifty or sixty years of age and, being mostly of wood, are showing their age badly. There is a general air of shabbiness conveyed in the lack of paint and the neglect to do necessary repairs. This applies equally to the upper parts of both streets mentioned. At their southern terminus they traverse Buckle Street—and so to the Carillon and the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum. Street-widening Scheme. When Mayor of this city seven years ago, Mr. G. A. Troup sensed the situation. Having put bis hand to the plough in the raising of the £lOO,OOO toward the project, and left no stone unturned in bringing that campaign to a successful issue, he, as Mayor, saw that the city would have to do much to help in the consummation of the bigger scheme of providing a dignified approach to tlie buildings which, are to provide Wellington with n cultural centre of a standard hitherto unattained. Mr. Troup induced the City Council to approve of a plan of streetwidening. The council placed a proclamation over all properties on tlie western side of Taranaki Street, between Courtenay Place and Buckle Street, which provided that owners on rebuilding were to set back to a building alignment 30 feet from the existing one. That was in order to provide, in the fullness of time, for an 80-foot street. At the same time the council was induced to provide for tlie widening of Buckle Street from 49 feet 6 Inches to 80 feet.

L'p to the present Hie visible progress in taking advantage of these proclamations has been slow. It is true the City Council has acquired many of the properties in Taranaki Street, so that the street design may be carried into effect, but the process appears to be a gradual one—as it was in the case of Willis Street over a quarter of a century ago.

As far as Taranaki Street is concerned a few of the new buildings are set back to the new building lino (which may not be advantageous from a business point of view). In Buckle Street the thoroughfare has been widened to its full breadth only opposite the national site itself. Nothing further can be done without the co-operation of two Government departments—Defence and Justice. On the western side one-third of the length of Buckle Street (between Taranaki and Tory Streets) is occupied by dull, unsightly, red brick buildings, on both sides of the street, belonging to the Defence Department. One of these buildings presents a dead, windowless wall to Buckle Street. All are built out to the street alignment. In order to carry out the intention of the City Council —the ideal of Mr. Troup—the Defence Department would have to demolish its headquarters office on tlie corner, tlie A.S.C. building, and stores alongside, and rebuild more modern and possibly higher buildings. In view of the' activity of defence matters it may not lie out of place for the department to consider action of the kind. Either that or adapt the drillshed premises opposite, to the demands for offices. On the south side of Buckle

Street, at the Tory .Street end, is the Mount Cook Police Station and an old cottage (formerly the caretaker’s cottage for the Defence Department). The police station would probably have to be set back or rebuilt, while the cottage is due for demolition. Still, in order to give the national group of buildings on tlie hill the proper setting, these improvements must be made. It depends on the authorities concerned when that will be done. Row of Shabby Shops. It is unfortunate, too. that tlm precincts of this tine institution should consist of Wellington's nearest approach to slums. There is quite a row of shabby unpainted old shops, long shuttered up, where a colony of Hindus and Chinese reside under uninviting conditions. If one takes a stroll in this neglected quarter any line morning it is possible to glimpse the character of its inhabitants. Just round the corner in Haining Street yesterday dozens of Chinese were sitting out in the sunshine smoking and talking, none of them apparently workers in the English sense of tlie word. Yet this nolssome quartei- is within a stone’s-tllrow of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum, Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, when Mayor, had a grandiloquent sclieme for clearing out the whole of that neighbourhood, between Vivian Street and Buckle Street, and establishing in tlie centre a civic centre, with a central highway leading to the carillon tower and national gallery. It was a fine idealistic scheme, but it proved, on account of the huge cost, to be little more than a dream. That reform is still needed. Indeed, the existence of these institutions on the hill, devoted to art and science, will tend to emphasise the need for some reasonable form of town-planning and city beautification in that neighbourhood before long.