BUILDING FOR TO-DAY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 51, 7 September 1928, Page 8

BUILDING FOR TO-DAY

Replying to a proposal that Lyall Bay School should be rebuilt.in brick, the Minister of .Education ;said yestciv d:iy that, a brick school, would last'for 100 years; -but lie ventured tho opinion that in another 25 years, there would be a wholly different outlook in regard to building. We agree with the Minister that rebuilding at the present time in brick or wood would not . bo warranted while the old building, by a comparatively small expenditure, can be made to serve many years more. But Mr. Wright's argument (which agrees with a policy pronouncement made some time ago) goes much further than this.- It advances the argument that buildings of greater permanence are wasteful because ideas . are changing. Tliis we cannot agree with. The changes in the next half-century are unlikely to be much more radical than in the past half-century, and what effect havo these changes had upon school-building plans? Certainly the modern schools embody improved methods of lighting and ventilation, but the greater volume of school rebuilding is necessitated' not because"'the schools aro unsuitable in design, but. because the materials used lacked durability. If there had been brick-building for schools fifty years ago thero might be some remodelling required, hero, and there, but there would not bo the extensive rebuilding which now places so heavy a burden upon education. New ideas in education do not necessarily call for alteration of-accommodation-. The suggestion that we should continue to-use wood in schools is uneconomic. In the old world there are educational buildings which have stood for centuries, and, though the modernist may say they aro not up-to-date, he cannot deny that the schools they accommodate furnish an education equal to that obtainable in aiiy edifice constructed just yesterday.