AUCKLAND TOWN HALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13435, 13 March 1907, Page 6

AUCKLAND TOWN HALL.

The matter of the erection of the Auckland Town Hall, for which a loan not exceeding £60,000 has been voted by the ratepayers, has advanced another stage by the acceptance by the Council of the decisions of the judges in the design competition. The Council is not bound to accept as the plan of the Town Hall the design to which first prize has been awarded, but we may assume that the opinion of the architectural authorities who adjudicated will have weight with our municipal administrators and that when modified by the Town Hall Committee it will be finally adopted, unless good reason is advanced for a contrary course. The three prize-winners are all .Victorian firms, and the first have

had such a wide experience in tHe designing of public buildings and have been so successful in the business as to suggest that they possess special talent in this direction. Much may be said both for and against competitions of this class, but the Council acted a3 it considered best for the citizens of Auckland, and in the outcome has seemed a design which if built to should do credit to the city and fulfil what is required of a Town Hall. The erection of this much-needed edifice has been so long delayed that no unnecessary impediment should now be thrown in the way of. its ■commencement. In such matters there will always be differences of opinion, as to site, as to design and even as to the necessity of the building. But though we may not agree as to what is the \>est we can all agree as to what is good and satisfactory, in which spirit the public ought to treat the Town Hall question and the design -which competent judges regard as the best obtainable at the price.