CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 3 June 1938, Page 8

CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

WORK AT SITE TRANSFORMATION OF LANDSCAPE ACRES OF FOUNDATIONS (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, June 2. Where last winter footballers scrimmaged on the green turf at Lyall Bay, to-day a small army of navvies and carpenters is already erecting the foundations of the biggest building in the southern hemisphere—the building which will cover approximately 15 acres of floor space and will be the main portion of the 1940 Exhibition premises. Already the playing fields of yesterday . are scarred with the deep furrows of the drainage and water system, and about a quarter of the foundations is completed to the level of the floors.

At first glance, the scene at Lyall Bay is somewhat chaotic, but at the second glance, it is possible already to trace the outlines of the Exhibition building and, in another month the work of placing the foundations will be far advanced In the neighbourhood of Kingsford Smith street are heaped high stacks of timber, for the entire structure ir to be of wood, and will utilise the volume of timber obtainable from a very considerable forest, something in the neighbourhood of 7,000,000 ft of wood. A big temporary shed has been fitted as a carpenter’s workshop where joinery jobs and the cutting and measuring of the timber can be expeditiously carried out. The floors of the buildings will stand some 6ft above the level of the ground, and will be approached up flights of steps. In consequence, the several acres of foundations so far completed appear like a forest of piles a fathom tall. With their tops connected by sleepers of heavy timber, they are strongly designed to carry the great weights of the crowds of sightseers and the heavy mechanical and other exhibits. So far, the foundations of the New Zealand Government section, with 105,000 square feet of floor, have been laid, and work is proceeding apace on the transport and provincial courts. When these are completed, very nearly one-half of the main building foundations will have been laid. In the meantime, the Wellington City Council’s elaborate mechanical Robot excavators, ditchers, and so on are rapidly altering the configuration of the Lyall Bay landscape. From Moa Point hilltop spoil is being brought to fill hollows, excavators are tearing up the seabeds of the past to enable huge drain pipes and the water main for the waterfall and fountains to be laid before the flooring is completed. Sand dunes, which have fringed the bay ever since Miramar ceased to be an island, are being wiped flat as a child smooths away a sand castle on the shore. More than 100 men are busy on the exhibition site, and from now onward progress will be increasingly rapid. The next few months will see the biggest building in Australia and New Zealand rising rapidly on the seashore of Lyall Bay.