SERMONS IN STONES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13984, 17 August 1907, Page 6

SERMONS IN STONES.

OUR CITY BUDDINGS. Br C. C. One of the reproaches 'brought agairist. all cities and towns in new countries is that they are built in such an unsubstantial manner. The first comers, as a matter of necessity, pitch their tents itt the most easily accessible 6pot, and then, as soon as they become influenced by any feeling of perinaiiency, the hut built, of logs, with clay daubed into the inteistices to keep' the wind out, marl(6 the eecoild stage of fixity, aiid this is followed by the digging of'a saw pit and the introduction of dressed timber, accompanied by. the importation of tinned iron for roofing and scrim for lining. These stages of development in dwellings and business premises are inevitable in the growth of all such centres of population, but theW is too much rflciin Sit regret that the building operations of to-day are earned on with so little regard to permanency and (Stability. Weatherboard, tinned iron, ahd scrim reign supreme everywhere: outside the "brick areas" defined bv by-laws in the principal New Zealand cities. Even in the country, where agricultural lands have been purchased, landed proprietors build ; farm residences from the same plans that suburban residents select—a machine inade panel door in front opens into a narrow passage, the rooms are ranged on both sides, the partition walls are so flimsy that even a. sheeze ill one room is heard in every other, and violates the privacy of the whole house. This "jerry building" is not ah inherited instinct, nor is it born of necessity. fn every colony in these southern seas, in parts of the existing towns that were taken tip by the pioneers, there stand to this day substantial brick or atone Structures, copies of the village oi: city dwellings left behind in the Mother liand, and indicative of the desire of every colonist to reproduce, wisely or foolishly, a replica of the cherished British home. Sydney, Perth, and Holwrt are notable inst-'ices of this characteristic architectural trait, which has probably died out in the iiative born genera, tion, and the result is that buildings nro erected to meet immediate needs only, and with no eye to posterity, or even to press tit Solid comfort ill a climate that lias penetrating winds, cold that is occasionally piercing, and rains that are not infrequently soaking by reason of their conThis obtrusive want of substantiality is the less excusable because there are very few parts of the oolony devoid of good building material other than wood. South Island freestone is of such excellent duality that important buildings in the Australian colonies are built with it, Thousands of hills contain stone that might be advantageously quafried'by our builders, every river provides a cheap supply of shinelo for making concrete—the'eoming building material—and clay beds for brickmaking are on every hand. In spite of nil these advantages we pereist- in building with wood and iron in the most unsubstantial manner, and even make a boast that at the seat of Government is to be. eeen the largest wooden building in tho world— a, possession that- can hardly be regarded as anything tlse than extremely risky, even when the State is its own insurance office. The reflection that "We've no abiding city here" may be very appropriate for pilgrims and sojourners who have the eye of faith fixed on a city "Gternal in the heavens," but that does not do away with the mundane, responsibility of those who have lo build lip a voung nation on the best lines suggested by experience. The surroundings of the homo and city life have an undoubted Influence on character. The beautiful is not- as a rule found in close association with the base or vile, thourfi, if not too critical, we may believe that — ! ' The toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. Nature is very close to US in New Zealand, in respects much more erichahting than the exiled duke found in the forest of Arden, and, therefore, it is easier for us to

Find tongues in trees, books in numing

brooks, SermoUß in stoneß, and good 1 in everything. In the : moment, however, the means for edification have been provided by local architects in Some of the new buildings that will, on completion, materially add to the adornment of our city. The new Bank of Australasia, with frontages to three streets, "shines like a good deed in a. naughty world." The walls of solid freestone put the surrounding stucco to sluime.' They slund for honesty, per* nwneiicy, durability, bcautv, incombustibility. Daily pnssere-by will liave a comfortable assurance that the pallor of newness, now so evident, will mellow with age, and the stone become indurated by exposure to the " churlish chiding of the winter's wind!" i'lie structure suggests the governance of a corporation conducted oil the lines of thoroughness, integrity, square commercial dealing, and security to clients equal to the inviolability of the strongrooms embedded deep in tlie foundations of (he banking • chambers. It has the additional recommendation of being a local production, for the quarried in the South Island, and- the architectural and manipulative skill-were found on the 6pot. The new building at the corner of High and Bowling streets furnishes another excellent instance of architectural skill in dealing effectively with a flat-iron shaped allotment. The honest brickwork, from basement to parapet, is an enduring protest again6t the use of shams in Street architecture—the thin pretence to be stone that obtrudes in the lying faccs of stucco, and painted wooden surfaces sanded (ivor. that raised the ire of Mr Frank Btillen when he was recently in New Zealand, and that are continual offences against eood taste and honest workmanship. The splendid Hoffman bricks used in this building had, it must be confes-cd with regret, to bo imported from Melbourne, and the same industrial centre supplied the steel cirders used in the structure. The new Public Library and the Art Gallery are clso commendable erections in so far as they show extensive surfaces of unadorned brick, with only occasional lapses into, stucco ornamentation. AH these may, it is hoped, be taken as indications that public taste in the matter of building'is becoming in these colonics, as it certainly is in the Home Country, more pure and healthy, tlmt the unsubstantial is being replaced by the solid and enduring. In one class of our _ city buildings, where architectural deceits should certainly find no place, they are palpably evident. In our places of worship falsity of assertion as to the material used in the construction of pulpits and pillars is far from being the exception, and it should be impossible. With whatrighteous scorn does Ruskin ill his " Seven Lamps of Architecture" protest ftgainst these iniquities, when ho 6ftys:—"The smoothly stuccoed walls, the flat roof with ventilator ornaments, the barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead ground square panes, the gilded or bronzed wood, the painted iron, Hie wretched upholstery of curtains and cushions, the new heads, the nltar railings, the Birmingliaro mewl candlesticks, and, above all, the green and yellow sickness of the fake marbledisguises all, observe; falsehoods all—who are they who like thecfi things? who defend them? who,do them?." .The guilty onCa in our cities are those who have often

given liberally, and the churches that rat. them are richly endowed. Their, /orebears, in ninny instances, "rolled their hymns to wintry skies," and suffered per-, secution for so doing, but their love for the church of their fathers was unaccompanied with artistic discrimination. It remains for Urn itoW generation to' adopt better plans for building and to carry out schemes of ornamentation that are not nicrctficious.