Hunter must be Saved!

I am horrified at how unquestioningly the great majority of students are resigned to the proposed demise of the Hunter Block. Demolition is accepted as the only practical proposition, but it would appear from reports that no precise cost forecast as to strengthening the building has been made. All the paragraphs relating to this question are hyperbolic and vague—strengthening would be "too costly" or "completely prohibitive". It is with great hope and interest that the Historic Places Trust's investigation into cost of strengthening is awaited.

I find it hard to accept that strengthening would be vastly more expensive than the cost of demolition, the building of a replacement plus the immeasurable inconveniences of the long interim period. However, Hunter has a value far above purely utilitarian scales, for it is the only building of tradition and beauty on the campus and it dominates and enhances Wellington City which can little afford to allow yet another aspect of its special character to disappear.

It is enigmatic that Hunter is considered "a serious earthquake risk" yet evacuation is to be slowly progressive over a period of three years. Surely if there was real danger, evacuation would be immediate. There is no reason to imagine that earthquakes will obligingly wait for three years before occurring.

The ambitions of empire-builders are to be suspected in drastic plans for university expansion. Think of the opportunities in replacing a gracious, spacious three floor building, with a ten floor modern warren of windowless cubes!

No one should accept such definite sounding statements as "Hunter has to go" or "the entire Hunter block would have to be pulled down" (from the Post 28/8/74) because formally no absolute decision has been made. Apparently "the steps that are to be taken will be determined by University Council's newly established Site and Building Utilisation and Development Committee and before there can be any fair determination, the alternative of strengthening will have to be considered objectively and in detail.

Initiative must come from the students and surely the physics and law faculties situated in Hunter, who have had the benefits of this unique building are especially equipped to aid any attempt to preserve Hunter, for the whole problem relates to "seismic resistance" and section 301A Municipal Corporation Act, 1968 Amendment.

If students are not stirred by the threat to their only building with character, obviously Rankine Brown and the other sterile monstrosities making up Victoria University have already crushed any aesthetic sensitivity their occupants ever had. The outlook for the quality of students produced in a university without Hunter is even bleaker.