NEW POST OFFICE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1287, 16 November 1911, Page 5

NEW POST OFFICE.

READY ABOUT APRIL 1. Tho now Post Office, which fronts Featherston Street, and is flanked by Grey and Panama Streets, at a first glance, looks stumpy. That is not the fault of tho Government Architect (Mr. John Campbell), whose design was for a five, and not a four-story building. It would have suited a building better than a five, but tho design loses its original architectural grace when cut down to a much lower building than-originally intended. Height is _ ono of the chief factors for careful consideration in designing any structure, be it a palace or n monument—tho dimensions and stylo which suit a building 100 ft. in height might very easily be unstated to a building 70ft. in height. That is how tho now Post Office suffers in appearance. Good progress is being made by Messrs. J.'and A. Wilson with the finishing work. The third floor room on tho southern side is completed. It is a great manypillared halt, with walls of white plaster, finished in glistening Keen's cement. The windows aro many-paned and iron-fram-ed. Some have as many as 48 panes of glass within tho one frame. The iron frame takes in the Hope patent, by which the centre panel of panes mav be opened outwards like a door. The window-catch is a good idea-it permits of tho window being opened wide, or just a fraction of an ' inch. The plasterer* are working downwards from the top floor. The wooden floors aro down on tho second and third floors, and the splayed battens have been embedded in the concrete on the ground floor in preparation for tho planks. , ' X - he building is not so large as it looks, this chiefly owing to the liberal allowance made for the light well in tho centre of tho building, which necessarily deprives the structure of a goad deal "of accommodation space which one might imagine the block contained when viewed from without. A roof is now being erected over tho huge dome which is to light the big public office on tho ground floor in order that tho plasterers may get on with the finishing work before the glaziers are culled in.

A rearrangement has been made in regard to tho Tarcels Post Office, which is situated in the cellar on the Grey Street side. It was intended originally that tho entrance to this branch should be from tho main vestibule in Featherston Street. Now it has been decided to brick that entrance up, aiid cut another in the concrete floor half-way along Grey Street, just about where the .entrar.co to the private box lobby is at present. The boilor room for steam-heating the building is in the centre of the cellar, aud on the Panama Street side arc rooms for tho carpenter and a bicycle-room for the telegraph messengers. All the strongrooms—six in number—aro also in the cellar, and all ' valuable records and ledgers will have to be sent down in the lift nightly after working hours. Brick walls, and ceiling-high rooms of stout steel bars alternatively divide tho strongrooms. The contract for the simply of cne passenger and two goods' elevators has been let to Messrs. Turnbull and Jones. Messrs. ,T. and A. Wilson expect to be clear of their contract on April 1.