PUBLIC AND ARCHITECTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18942, 13 February 1925, Page 10

PUBLIC AND ARCHITECTS.

MORE INTEREST NEEDED. CRITICISM OF BUILDINGS, ,i 9 [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT. J WELLINGTON. Thursday. The importance of education in the cause of architecture and of establishing better relations between the architect and the public was stressed by the president, Mr. W. M. Page, at the annual general meeting .of the New Zealand Institute of Architects this morning. One effect of the registrafion of architects in England, said Mr. Page, referring to the amalgamation of the Royal Institute and the Society of Architects, would be, according to the Earl of Crawford, that the public would become more exacting. "I wonder if any of you can say that that has been the effect of registration in New Zealand?" he asked. "I do not think we should fear a more exacting public; on the contrary we should welcome it." A more exacting pifßlic would be a, tremendous stimulus to architecture and it was just this lack of exaction and interest on the part of those for whom the architect built that was so much to be deplored. "I cannot understand," Mr. Page remarked, "why the same interest that is evinced in painting, literature and the drama should not be shown in architecture. I cannot see why our buildings should not be criticised. A picture, a new book or play, is reviewed and criticised by competent writers, but our buildings, which are constantly before us, and from which we cannot get away, are left severely alone. Speaking for myself, I should like to have the truth about our buildings published in the press, "I am not suggesting that we should start a controversy in New Zealand but I do suggest that more should be done to interest the public in architecture. It must not be forgotten it is their architecture almost as much as it is ours."