TENDERS CALLED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 129, 2 June 1937, Page 12

TENDERS CALLED

NEW CENTRAL LIBRARY

THE MERCER STREET SITE

ROOM FOR EXTENSION

Tenders are today being called for the erection of the new Central Library on. the site between Mercer and Harris Streets, and to library users and the library staff that is very good news, for so inadequate and badly arranged is the present building that the service expected cannot be given the public.

It is just over two years since the loan poll was carried, arid about eighteen months since the competition closed and the designs of Messrs. Gum-] mer and Ford, Auckland, and Messrs. Messenger and Taylor, New Plymouth, were accepted, by the jury of award, Mr. C. Wood, Christchurch, and Mr. J. Norrie, the Chief Librarian, as the basis upon which the final design should be drawn. This combination of the' more desirable features—exterior in one case and interior in the other —occupied the architects for several months, and the final "design was approved by the City Council in August of last year. Since then a great amount of work has been done, for if the general design is the inspiration, the intricate, detailed"^designs, sheet after sheet of blue prints, are what the contractor works from. The calculation of quantities following the presentation of the detailed plans occupied several more months, and minor difficulties which arose had to be adjusted. However, today tenders are called. BUILDING COSTS HIGHER. There is still a possible difficulty ahead in that when the loan was passed a total of £60,000 was considered by the council to be sufficient for the'building and its equipment. Since then materials have increased considerably in cost,and building costs generally are higher. Even £60,000 —£48,000 for the building and £12,000 for equipment-would have cut things fairly fine on the 1935 costs, and it is expected that the tender prices will be well over this figure .today. That fence will be jumped when the horses come to it. THE GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. The ground plan of the design is in the shape of a squat T. The frontage to Mercer Street is 181 feet, the depth of the arm of the T is 64 feet, arid the depth over all (through the T) 104 feet. The- building will be placed well forward in the site towards Mercer Street, so that space will be left between the first stage and Harris Street for additions in the future. When this addition is required the short arm of the T will be crossed and the floor plan converted to an H, with facades to both Mercer and Harris Streets, but with still a considerable open space about the building. There will be two storeys and a basement extending over the full floor area. On the ground floor will be the lending, junior, and schools' departments, the newspaper and magazine rooms, the -main lobby, and various offices. ' The upper floor will be taken up by the reference, commercial, and technical departments, the New Zealand room, music room (to which will be attached two sound-proof rooms), the office of the Chief Librarian, a committee room, general offices and staff rooms, the catalogue department, and so on. The basement will provide space for the stock racks on which books.not 'in daily demand will be kept, a lecture hall, and a smaller meeting room, the bindery and other workshops, a photostat room,' heating and ventilating equipment, and various storerooms. The new library will introduce several sections which are out of the question in the present building; for instance, facilities for lectures and the meetings of study circles, the music room (for serious study, not for amusement), and the photostat equipment for the rapid copying of printed matter required by students and others. Very little use is made of photostat copying in New Zealand today, except by certain of the Government Departments and for special record purposes, but in overseas libraries photostat copying is widely used. Collections of photostat copies of rare books and pictures are also a feature in some libraries, but that is not at present intended for the Wellington Library.