INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 10 November 1926, Page 5

INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

ASKS WIDER FIELD. ■ .. ', , \ ui -v WORK ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS CRAMPED BY GOVERNMENT (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 9; A request that all education and hospital boards should be left perfectly nee to employ any fully qualified architect to design and supervise, their works was the main representation of a deputation from the council of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, which waited on the Minister ot Education and the Minister of Health today. The president of the institute, Mr. S. Hurst Seagar, said they wished to bring under the Minister’s notice an injustice they considered was being done to private .practitioners in preventing them from undertaking commissions for the erection of school buildings. Hospital boards also were not encouraged to place their work with private architects, having been advised that it was to their interest to allow their work to be.done by the architectural branch of the Public Works Department. “We cannot admit tliis.’’ said Mi*. Seagar, “for all works can be designed, and carried out, by fully qualified private practitioners in every way as well and economically las by the Public Works. AYe submit that it would be in the interests of government architectural works that architects in private practice should be employed as far as possible .in designing them.” Mr. Seagar referred to the large number of young architects who were taking courses abroad, and gaining experience, and said it would be a great loss to the Dominion if no professional inducement was offered them on their return to the Dominion. He asked that education and hospital boards should be left free to employ any qualified architects.

Mr. S. AY. Fearn .said the excellence of modern school and hospital plans was due almsot wholly to architectural competition. If private architect--', were excluded the Government would lose the benefit of competition. Ho submitted that architects were all taxpayers, and that it did not- seem-just for them to be compelled to contribute to the upkeep of Government departments which, to a very large extent, threatened their means of livelihood. ’

Replying to the deputation; the Minister of Education (the Hon. R.. A. AYright) said there was a controversy, as to whether private architects could s carry out the work as cheaply as the department. His department still maintained that the work was done at a cost of about 1 per cent since the Public Works Department had carried out the majority of the secondary school . ■ works for the department. Since 192324 the cost of the preparation of plans, specifications, etc., had been carefully kept by the Government architect, and in no case had it exceeded 1 per'cent. Tliis did not include supervision. * charges, but it included overhead charges. The Minister said the department had something .in the nature of. a grievance against some architects who had supervised the erection of .school .buildings, and he went on to instance a number of cases where the department had been faced with a heavy cost of repairs and renewals owing to what lie alleged was faulty supervision. The Minister of Health (the Hon. J. A. Young) said it was not the policy of his department to interfere with hospital boards, but as it was responsible for at least half the expenditure of the boards, it had to see that abuses did not creep in, and that extravagant institutions were not erected. The department’s policy had always been to assist the boards and architects. There were experts in the Government architect’s office who were not to .'be excelled in the Dominion. If the department furnished the brains for the preparation of hospital buildings the hoard should have the benefit of it. - There was something wrong with the commission system. It was like a land agent. The more the price was piled up the more he got in commission. The Hon. Mr. Young suggested that the institute might consider whether some remedy could not be found for I that position. AYhere larger contracts were concerned, if it could do so, perhaps the iGovernnient might change its policy in regard to hospital and education buildings.