The Local Government Act allows local bodies to take powers requiring building owners to upgrade masonry buildings to a reasonable level of seismic capacity. The State Opera House is one such building. The theatre was built in 1913 and allows for seating for 1300 patrons
 on three levels. The building is of
 brick construction with walls up to 685mm thick and 23,000mm high without intermediate support. Although the Wellington City Council generally requires buildings to achieve two thirds of the standard
laid down by NZS 1900 Chap. 8:1965 the
 City Engineer requested that the Opera House be upgraded to full compliance with that standard. As a preliminary to
detail design, tests were made on brick beam samples to determine what quality
of brickwork existed within the building and what levels of stress could be
reliably used in panel configurations.
 From these tests we determined a bond strength of 0.1MPa in mortar joints
and F’c (Brick) 10MPa. This investigation was coupled with an extensive structural survey to supplement the meagre amound
 of information from drawings and original specification.