New Home For Winter Exhibition

Northern Advocate, 19 July 1939, Page 13

New Home For Winter Exhibition

Focal point of interest at a meeting cf the Whangarei A. and P. Society’s

general committee on Monday was a cardboard scale model of the new Winter Exhibition building, the erection cf which is proposed on reclaimed Harbour Board endowment land

on Can-nth Street Extension. Estimated to cost at least £7OOO, it is hoped that Whangarci's new exhibition home will be ready for the big 1940 Northland Centennial display next winter.

The handwork of the secretary. Mr C. P. Butler, the model gave committee members a clear conception cf the appearance and lay-out of the proposed building.

Two hundred and fifty feel long and 168 feet deep, the building is planned on a generous scale. Big Central Hall.

Cutstanding feature will be a central hall 50 feet wide and 160 feel deep, giving a total floor area of 12.500 square feet. In this section will bo housed the forecourt, 50 feet wide and 60 feet deep.

Behind this will be an entertainment hall 100 feet long, with a moveable stage, which will enable almost the full length of the building to be used should occasion warrant. The entertainment hail will have a hardwood dance floor. At the lower end of the central block will be tea rooms 20 feet by 40 feet.

The hall will be flanked by trades display halls, each with a floor space of 11,600 square feet, which will each be capable of further extension as required, thus giving adequate provision for future expansion,

Trade Display Space

These spacious halls will also provide around their walls space for such sections as heme industries, schools sections, needlework and flower displays, although large blocks of space will be occupied by the courts housing the National Bacon Fig Championship entries and the model section. A separate block, with a floor space of 2400 square feet, is planned for the poultry, birds and dog displays adjacent to one of the main display halls. Opening off the forecourt, which it is suggested in the initial year of the. new building should house tne Northland Court from the Wellington Centennial Exhibition, will be office and other accommodation.

Office Accommodation. Adjacent to the main office will be the offices of the president, secretary and assistant-secretary, while the public office will be much more spacious than that now in use. Opposite tne offices will be the exhibit receiving room, and committee room, the latter being provided with lockers to safeguard exhibits as they come to hand. Two Lecture Rooms. A valuable feature of the new scheme is the provision of two lecture rooms, each of an area of 300 square feet. These will be available for letting to the public and to various organisations for meetings and other purposes.

The grounds in front of the building will be laid out in flower beds and shrubberies finished with low stone walls.

An area behind the buildings is to be set aside as an amusement park, with access from the central hall and from the two display halls. It is suggested that the sideshows should be grouped about a scrm-circu-lar walk, with “rides” and open games in the centre and the various booths on the outer edge.

The president of the society, Mi H. W. James, and the secretary, Mr C. P. Butler, left Whangarei today for Auckland, where they will make further investigations into the raising cf the necessary finance for the project.