“AN ABSURDITY”

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11654, 19 October 1923, Page 4

“AN ABSURDITY”

BASIN RESERVE PAVILION COUNCIL’S' ACTION STRONGLY CRITICISED. “IT COULDN’T BE DONE!” “There is one absurdity that has come under my notice,” remarked a professional man to a “New Zealand Time?’’ reporter yesterday. “And that concerns the pavilion at the Basin Reserve. “The City Council, by advertisement, offered a prize of £IOO to architects for the best design for this pavilion. They received designs, closed the competitions, and made the award. And after the prize had been handed over they decided not to go on with the work from the plans, but to hand the matter over to an engineer in their own works department. “The point is, that with the conditions which they laid down to govern the competition, the work simply couldn’t he done at the co6t named. Not even if the building had been put up of papier-mache. There would not have been the seating capacity, for one thing, and anybody could have told them that.

“When the building which they do put up is erected, it will certainly be smaller. And yet the prize was advertised and paid and a useless competition held—and then the council decided to hand the work over to one of their own officers who ‘had had considerable experience with steel.’ What bad that got to do with it?”