Interior Features of the Building.

High overhead is a ceiling in colour of intricate design. Pale green, rose and gold are the prevailing colours. Lower down is some of the finest brick-work ever seen in New Zealand, so perfect has it been modelled and adjusted. At either end are two immense columns of Whangarei marble—warm and delicately veined, and set off to perfection against the red bricks.

Above the entrance are two magnificent windows. Will the public appreciate the work which has been put into them, their dignity of style, and their cathedral-like quality? I think so, and yet, in admiring them, it would be possible and almost a privilege to miss a train. Telephone boxes have been adroitly hidden in the wide walls, part of the scheme of design, and yet not of it. How perfectly the architects have done their work here as elsewhere!

Out under a splendid arch of decorative brickwork on to the concourse—a wide and glass-covered thoroughfare, on to which open restaurant and tearooms, the post and telegraph office, ticket and luggage offices, waiting-rooms, bath rooms and lavatories, the barber's shop, book, sweet and fruit shops. From the side of this concourse run the underground passageways to the various platforms.

Here again, on the concourse, beauty has not been sacrificed. Along it runs a border of tiles in brown and dull orange, also used round the bases of the supporting pillars, and here and there, at regular intervals, specially designed tiles representing the history of transport—a delightful story in themselves.

Tiles and terracotta play a part of vast importance in the whole building. They are now regarded as one of the most perfect materials in modern building construction. They combine use, beauty, cleanliness and lasting quality, as no other material does. Terracotta, made in Australia, has been used on the outside of the station, and blends perfectly with the brickwork. But inside you will notice the tiles—and still more tiles. In the tearoom the counters and the lower parts of the walls are bright with tiles of a floral design; in the kitchen they are warm but not quite white, in the bathrooms they are pure white glaze with a design in blue; in the waiting-room there are two lovely Dutch tiles, works of art in themselves, and made by a process which could belong only to a master of his craft. These two are for decoration only.

Notice, too, the beauty of New Zealand polished rimu in the waiting-room; that lovely piece page 31 of wood-work in the ceiling. Here is New Zealand timber as it should be used.