NEW ART GALLERY TO BE BUILT ON LINES OF MODERN PRACTICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18418, 21 March 1928, Page 6

NEW ART GALLERY TO BE BUILT ON LINES OF MODERN PRACTICE.

The new art gallery for the city will be built on the most approved lines and will be designed with special regard to the lighting. The conditions for the competition for the designs have not been drawn up, but Mr S. Hurst Seager, who is to do this work and who will judge the designs, said yesterday that the structure will be of the most modern t)-pe. The main feature of the new gallery is that it will be lighted naturally, the system adopted being that of Mr Seager’s own, which permits the light to fall on the walls and not on the floor in the centre of the building as is usually the case. This system is adopted in the Sarjeant Art Gallery in Wanganui and is now to be found in the Tate Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, in Holland and in the United States. Mr Seager has studied the problems of lighting galleries and museums in all parts of the world and his system of top-side lighting has been approved in a publication entitled' “ Natural Lighting of Picture Galleries,” which arrived in Christchurch yesterday. The pub lication is from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in England, and contains a scientific investigation into lighting problems. Its verdict is given whole-heartedly in favour of the top-side system which has been evolved by Mr Seager. The new gallery will be designed to accommodate the present collection of the Society of Arts and the Jamieson collection and to allow for acquirements in the immediate, future. Its design will also permit of extensions if they are required in future 3 r ears.