There are now nearly sixty architectural students in Wellington City. Rightly or wrongly they are all aiming to qualify for entry into the governing professional body, the New Zealand Institute of Architects. Since the only School of Architecture in the country is attached to Auckland University despondent students in the capital have long voiced the need for organised direction in their studies. Their road to qualification is inevitably painful and often ultimately crushing.

Thus, since all sixty people have apparently been accepted as fit candidates for the profession, the Centre has made some attempt to provide what parttime instruction it could and to broaden the scope of their preparation.

In doing so the Centre last year used nineteen unpaid lecturers to give a total of twenty-five hours of specialised lectures and tutorials each week. Classes ranged up to twenty-four in number and most of the students were supplied with typewritten notes on their subject matter.

Is this a misplaced charity which can only dull initiative and kill vital enterprise, ultimately producing a group of mediocre and over-numerous professionals? We don't think so. We feel that ultimately no more will gain admission to the Institute than the standards required by that body will allow. But we do insist that who-ever is admitted shall not have spent eight to ten disheartening years floundering through a series of mysteries to emerge at the other end with no more educational background than a store of unrelated technical facts with which to practice his art. And we make no apologies for the word “art”.

Whether the students continue to fail examinations or not is of little concern. The main thing is for some to emerge at the other end with an attitude toward architecture other than sheer relief at having qualified.

Cuttings From The Centre Scrapbook