SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 140, 11 December 1923, Page 7

SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE

departmeWs proposal

POLICY CONDEMNED.

(»I MIKORAPH.—IFICML. 10 THE POST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. The Education Department's proposal that private architects be no longer employed by education boards hat received prompt consideration by the Auckland branch of the N.Z.E.1., whose views are embodied in a letter to the Press by the district honorary secretary, Mr. A. J Palmer. This letter states that the proposed change " it part of the Department's policy of shortsighted economy, which has caused the Education Department to encourage the erection of buildings in wood, buildings which, while being perhaps 10 per cent, cheaper in.Ant cost, will be 100 per cent, dearer in ultimate cost, on account of depreciation, upkeep, and fire lose." Th» circular issued by tha Department on the subject gives, it ia stated, a one-sided and incorrect view. It compares th« amount paid to private architects for certain school work with the amount paid to salaried architects for other work. It is pointed out thai" from the fea paid to the private architect all his expense* have to b« met, those including rent, salaries, office stationery, and travelling and other expenses. Similar expenses haye to be met by the salaried architects, but they do not usually appear in the accounts ac directly incurred by the Architects' Department. This, it is contended, is especially true when the figure* are being quoted- by interested parties to indicate a saving effected by the employment of salaried men in lieu of private practitioners.' The letter conclude*: "It cheapness the only aim? It may be said without fear of serious contradiction that such service would result in stereotyped architecture Surely there it no class of public buildings which calls ao much for the highest architectural (service a« those designed to house th» children of the nation during the greater part o{ their working hours and at their woit impressionable age."