Foreword

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pres.gif 23.6 KRecently I was looking through the documents used to construct a building in the1920’s. It was a retail building which today would cost about $5 million. There were nine drawings and a specification of some thirty pages. In number, these pale into insignificance against those generated today to carry out relatively minor alterations to this building.

The complexity of buildings has increased and the delivery processes have changed.

In many building projects, so called “economic rationalism” has become more important than community, corporate and personal pride in the building and the confidence displayed.

As inspector of public works in the 1870’s William Wardell wrote to a client-

    “You are about to build not for this generation only, nor for the next, but for those who will exist in centuries yet far removed from us; … What you do now do well-even if the funds at your immediate disposal require it to be less in quantity than your generosity intended.”

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