open house hobart 2023— the new spirit of modernism (part 2)

2023 Open House Hobart posts

• Architectural Drawing
• Signs of Hobart
• Crisp & Gunn (The Forestry Dome)
• The Railway Roundabout Fountain
• The ABC Building
• The New Spirit of Modernism (Part 1)

The New Spirit of Modernism (Part 2)

Featured buildings – Former M.L.C Building, Lands Building, and former AMP Building.

Former MLC Building

Leaving the State Library behind, our wonderful guide, Bronwen, led us down Murray Street past “Murray House”, to the corner of Liverpool Street, where we found the former MLC Building.

Former MLC Building 65 Murray Street

It was designed by Philp Lighton Floyd and Beattie for MLC. I had to google ‘MLC’ as I’m not sure what it stands for (other than knowing it’s easily confused with CLM, whose building on the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth Street was where we saw a ghost sign on Saturday). I suspected the words “mutual” and “life” might make an appearance and, indeed, MLC was once known as Mutual Life & Citizens Assurance Company Limited.

The building was constructed in two stages, with the first five storeys built (according to my records) in 1958, which means it pre-dates the library. The remaining floors were added in about 1977.

Looking down Murray Street, early 1970s (Tasmanian Archives PH30-1-9754)

I found the above photo in the library, which shows what the MLC building looked like before the top floors were added. (It looks like it might have been taken from the library.) There are a few other buildings in Hobart where this approach was taken. What is now Construction House in Bathurst Street and former 34 Davey Street are two that come to mind.

Looking up

I was lucky to have had a tour of this building through Open House in 2018, which took in the view of the city from the roof.

Looking back up Murray Street at the State Library and the Stack (November 2018)

The building also has this interesting extension on the first floor, which I think Bronwen said was part of the original design. And of course, the obligatory relief sculpture to show MLC’s care for their customers.

First floor of the MLC Building, currently home to the Bett Gallery

Jaffa House

Further along Murray Street is Jaffa House, which wasn’t on our official list of stops but we stopped there anyway.

It was designed by Jim Moon of Bush Parkes Shugg and Moon, and built in 1971-72. It was originally the Savings Bank of Tasmania headquarters, and is known as Jaffa because of its colour.

Reflections of the T&G Building in the windows of Jaffa

AMP Building

Our next stop was AMP House on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Street. It will always be AMP to me, never NAB, despite what the sign on the side says.

It was designed by Richard Crawford of Crawford Shurman Wegman Architects and competed in 1968.

AMP Building tower

This is a delightful building that can almost be seen in two parts: the tower and the podium on which it sits. I’ve often thought that the podium by itself would make a lovely small brutalist building.

You can see the relationships between the tower and the podium more clearly from higher up, like in this photo I made from the roof on the neighbouring CML Building during Open House 2018. (I did a lot of rooftops that year!)

AMP Building from the top of the CML Building

AMP is the Australian Mutual Provident Society, and it had a small office building on this site prior to 1881, when its new building was constructed.

AMP’s 1881 Premises on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Street (Tasmanian Archives)

This building was extended and had another floor added in 1913. Bronwen said that in the 1960s, AMP decided it wanted to own the tallest building in Hobart, so it had the 1881 building demolished and replaced with the current one. One of the archways from the old building is now located in the Botanical Gardens.

The facade features the Tom Bass relief sculpture “Amicus certus in re incerta – A sure friend in an uncertain event”, which is similar to the one on the side of Sydney’s AMP building. This one has a stylised map of Tasmania in the centre of arms encircling the Goddess of Plenty watching over the father, mother and child.

Looking up at the AMP Building

Reserve Bank

Just around the corner on Macquarie Street, is the Reserve Bank Building, which we learned about on a 2020 Open House walking tour.

The Reserve Bank Building, Macquarie Street

This building was completed in 1978, and Bronwen noted its recessed corners. (She loves recessed corners and pointed them out everywhere we went). What I remember about this building is that they wanted to keep it simple and inexpensive because money was tight at the time, and it wouldn’t have been a good look for the government to go splashing cash around for a fancy new bank building.

It was awarded the ‘Enduring Architecture Award’ at the 2012 Tasmanian Architecture Awards.

The void

Bronwen pointed out the recessed area to the left of the building that was kept aside for the public artwork, which in this case is Stephen Walker’s wonderful Antarctic Tableau.

Antarctic Tableau (detail) by Stephen Walker

Lands Building

Our final stop was the fabulous Lands Building in the next block.

It’s a very neat symmetrical design with some kind of escape hatch on the second to top floor that no one has ever been able to explain. (Look closely!)

The Lands Building, Macquarie Street

Another example from the 1970s (1976, I believe), it is, like other brutalist structures, grounded and earthy, which, Bronwen observed, seems appropriate for something called the Lands Building.

I think it could be taller.

The Lands Building, Macquarie Street

And that was the end of the tour.

It was great to meet someone who loves these buildings so much, and I agree with Bronwen that we need to find out more about them. I’m certainly enjoying uncovering their history from random places, but often all I can find is little snippets, as there isn’t a lot of readily available information about many of these buildings. It’s fun to search though! There are many rabbit holes . . .

Before we left, Bronwen asked if there was any interest in more tours of other modernist buildings and the answer was a very enthusiastic ‘yes’, so hopefully next year we’ll see her again.

open house hobart 2023— the new spirit of modernism (part 1)

2023 Open House Hobart posts

• Architectural Drawing
• Signs of Hobart
• Crisp & Gunn (The Forestry Dome)
• The Railway Roundabout Fountain
• The ABC Building

The New Spirit of Modernism (Part 1)

Featured buildings – State Library of Tasmania and The Stack.

If you can’t already tell from the majority of my photos, I’m rather fond of modernist buildings. So I was very excited when I saw there was a modernism walking tour on Open House weekend.

I’d told Lil Sis when we were negotiating the booking system that I didn’t care about anything else as long as I got onto this tour. We had booked onto a modernism tour a couple of years ago and it had been cancelled at the last minute because the architect had broken their toe and couldn’t manage the walk.

But no such disaster this time, and we met architect Bronwen Jones outside the State Library on Sunday afternoon.

The State Library Stack

Bronwen describes herself as a flâneuse, a female flâneur, the person who walks around the streets, observing urban life. I’ve often felt connected to this term but the one I use more often to describe myself is ‘urban bushwalker’. To my mind, it’s the same thing. Though maybe the original flâneurs walked with a sketchbook and I walk with my camera.

Bronwen is passionate about modernism and observed that, unlike the old sandstone buildings that dominate Tasmania’s landscape, there has been very little research done into these mid-20th century structures. As a result we don’t know a lot about them and there’s a real risk of them being demolished with their stories untold. It’s happened to far too many of these buildings already.

Behind the State Library

We began our tour at the Stack, the wonderful 1970s brutalist addition to the State Library (which you might recall was originally housed in the Carnegie Building we saw on the Signs of Hobart tour). It’s a most distinctive building, and there’s a video floating round in the archives that shows it being built.

Stack detail

It took me many years to work out that when an item’s location in the library catalogue said “Stack” it actually meant the item was in this building not, as I’d imagined, that it was sitting in a stack of other books on the floor . . . That only happens in my house. The library would not do this.

Textures and shadows of the Stack

Now that we have that cleared up, we were accompanied on the first part of the tour by Nina, one of Open House’s official photographers, who I’d met at the drawing workshop on Friday.

And at last, finally, several years after she had photographed me photographing a building completely unaware, I got my chance to return the favour. You have to be quick to do this though. She knows exactly what you’re doing most of the time!

Nina in action. Lil Sis is possibly aware this is happening

So, back to the Stack.

This building is raw, honest and, as Bronwen pointed out, designed with minimal windows to keep all the precious archival records away from the sunlight. She said it was always the intention for this section to be added when the library building was designed in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t completed until around 1971.

Minimal windows

The State Library building itself was designed by the Melbourne architect John Scarborough, who also designed the Morris Miller Library at the University. It was opened in 1962.

As we admired this fabulous building, Bronwen spoke about the context within which the modernist buildings came to be. There is much written on this. It was a time following post-war austerity, when architects (and everyone else) were able to travel internationally and bring back new ideas, and new immigration waves of people bringing ideas from their homelands with them. This included new design concepts, new materials like glass, steel and concrete, and new technology, including pre-fabrication.

Bronwen talking about the design of the State Library

And standardisation. There’s a lot of that. Fin. Glaze. Panel Repeat.

Bronwen said there is a lot of horizontal lines and regularity in these designs, but not necessarily with the axial symmetry you’d see in a Georgian design. The idea is that these buildings are stripped back to the essentials so the form comes through without any ridiculous (my word, not hers) fancy ephemera to distract you.

It fits the concept of “tabular rasa”: sweeping everything clean and starting over (I had to google that because I spelled it wrong). And it’s a very minimalist aesthetic: To achieve the most practically and aesthetically with the least possible means.

The other concept big in modernism was “form follows function” which in its simplest sense means the building should be designed so it can do what it’s meant to do. The Stack is an obvious example of this, I suppose, with its design that excludes the light so the archival artefacts aren’t damaged.

I tried to take notes but it’s impossible to do that and make photos at the same time AND listen to the person talking. (Can anyone tell me what “Groused Harvey” is supposed to mean? I wrote that in my notes and I have no idea!)

State Library glass curtain wall

Bronwen spoke about glass curtain walls, of which this is Tasmania’s first example. She noted that this type of wall is non-structural; it is ‘pinned’ to the slabs, which themselves are built on columns which give the structural support. This is unlike older architecture, which is built brick-on-brick, put in a window and keep building. (Reminds me of my Lego days.)

A problem with these structures today is that this is very thin, light glass that was intended to deliver natural light and warmth into the building, accompanied by flexible “shape-shifting interiors” that could easily be altered to the required layouts.

But open plan offices suck (again, my words), and the glass isn’t exactly thermal glass, so it’s not super efficient.

The building, like many others of this era, is elevated, and with so much glass it appears light and weightless, almost like it’s floating, in direct contrast to its grounded heavy neighbour, the Stack. I can’t say I’d ever paid attention but Bronwen pointed out how the building is set back from the street front and it sits at a slightly different angle to the street.

View of the library from the 1960s (Tasmanian Archives PH30-1-2205)

With the building sitting above the ground there is potentially a great public space at street level. It’s a car park, which is not great use of the space, but, as Bronwen said, in this era everything was being designed around the “car is king” principle. (I don’t think much has progressed there . . . though there are shifts that are upsetting car drivers, so there is hope for us urban walkers.)

State Library Bathurst Street facade

After stopping to admire the buildings from Murray Street, we headed down the road for the next stop on the tour.

State Library and the Stack from Murray Street

To be continued . . .

open house hobart 2023—the ABC building

2023 Open House posts

• Architectural Drawing
• Signs of Hobart
• Crisp & Gunn (The Forestry Dome)
• The Railway Roundabout Fountain

The ABC Building

It was a short stroll from the Railway Roundabout Fountain to the site of the former railway station that gave the fountain its name.

The site, originally built in the 1870s for the Tasmanian Main Line Railway Company, is now home to the ABC HQ, and was open for tours during Open House.

Here’s what the site looked like before the roundabout was built. What is now the ABC Building is in the centre of the photo, with the car park out the front.

Hobart Railway Station before 1961 (Source Tasmanian Archives & Heritage Office AA375-1-216)

If you look very closely at the far left of the photo, you can see the street arch with the crown on top that was made for the 1954 Royal visit and is now at the Riverfront Motel at Berriedale.

This was a self-guided tour of the studio so there was a lot of people lining up to get in, and the focus was on the ABC’s activities rather than on the architecture so I can’t tell you much about that.

The older building at the front of the site is the original railway station building from the 1870s. According to Col Dennison, the line opened in 1875 and the station closed in 1974.

The ABC site as it is today

A picture from Col’s book Yesterday’s Hobart Today shows a signal clock above a wrought iron porch at the front of the building.

Hobart Railway Station c 1940 (Source Tasmanian Archives & Heritage Office PH30-1-517)

I’ve seen some more recent photos of the site and it looks to have been a Datsun car parts office at one point.

If the ABC purchased the site in 1985, we can assume the large building dates back to around that time. It brings to my mind the CSIRO building on the waterfront, which was opened in 1982, so that sounds about right.

The ABC sign and some witches hats

The tour led us through the radio and TV studios, as well as a glimpse into the tech world.

Outside the ABC

A tiny studio, called the Tardis, captured my attention and as I was looking through the window, one the producers, Jo Spargo, told me this was where they do off-air interviews. She asked if I’d like to come in and talk about my story and my memories of the ABC.

Why not?

Jo’s questions led me into talking about my Hobart Street Corners project.

She asked what my memories of the ABC were, and I said when I was a kid, ABC was the only channel we watched. We’d watch Doctor Who and The Goodies, my Dad would watch the 7.00 News and then the TV would go off. That changed a bit when we got older but that was my childhood.

My Doctor Who memories don’t go back quite as far as 1972

Jo said that was a lot of people’s childhoods!

Presenter Sabra Lane talked us through her day on the radio and explained how she works in the studio.

We saw the TV news and weather sets, where people were able to have a go presenting and reading from the teleprompter.

I’m not planning on changing careers any time soon (photo: Lil Sis)

We saw a lot of historical relics from the ABC, including the gong used to announced the beginning and end of radio programs, and the ABC plaque.

The ABC plaque

According to the blurb next to the display, the ABC commissioned a plaque to put into its buildings after television was introduced into Australia. This was designed by Melbourne sculptor Andor Meszaros, who had designed the commemoration medallion for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.

The description of the plaque says it shows surround figures depicting seven program departments, with the centre motif revealing a man’s head superimposed on a transmitter tower. This symbolises the mind at work and thoughts being transmitted.

A very old radio

Speaking of childhood memories, we were also encouraged to take photos of ourselves with Big Ted and Jemima.

Childhood memories

Even though we didn’t learn much about the buildings, it was an interesting morning. I’d had no idea what it was like inside so appreciated the chance to walk through and find out.

Taking a close look at the outside

Thanks to the ABC and Open House for putting the day together.

The old railway office, now part of the ABC complex

open house hobart 2023—railway roundabout fountain

2023 Open House posts

• Architectural Drawing
• Signs of Hobart
• Crisp & Gunn (The Forestry Dome)

The Railway Roundabout Fountain

My first Open House Hobart stop on Sunday morning was the Railway Roundabout Fountain, which is located at the roundabout formerly known as the Railway Roundabout. I still call it that, even though the railway station is long gone (and is now the site of my next tour, the ABC Building).

Here’s a video of the roundabout from 1961 before the fountain was built.

Railway Roundabout Fountain

The Open House people had left a great history of the fountain on the site, which gave some of the context for the time in which it was built—including the Space Race—and the story behind its design.

The roundabout itself was designed to smooth the traffic flow that the intersection of Brooker Avenue and Liverpool Street. This was more difficult because of the large numbers of pedestrians in the area, travelling to and from the railway station on one side and, the swimming pool and the university campus on the Domain side.

To deal with this, they built four tunnels underneath the roads, which met in a sunken garden in the middle. We are told,

At this focal point, something bold and dramatic is needed – a monument, a structure, a statement – something that reflects the mood of change in the world, the optimism and excitement that is gathering momentum.

The view from underneath the fountain

Hobart Council ran a competition to design a fountain for the space. The winning design was from three workers from the Cadbury chocolate factory: graphic designer Geoff Parr, engineer Rod Cuthbert, and advertising administrator Vere Cooper.

Chris Viney, writing the blurb for Open House describes it as follows

A slender white 12-metre needle springs upward from its base in a circular bowl at ground level, passing through a wide, shallow dish, supported by slim pillars. Jets of water shoot skyward to play on the needle, then cascade down through holes into the lower bowl, which is tiled in a mosaic design.

Sunlight forms patterns through the holes—at night, floodlights illuminate the needle and the falling water. It’s a fountain for the Space Age, an exciting, forward-looking, upward-thrusting design for the decade of change that has just begun.

The fountain at night (Photo from 2019)

Another thing I didn’t know was how they’d designed the anemometer to stop the water spraying over passing cars and pedestrians. The original design hadn’t worked, and Rod Cuthbert said he developed his own based on one of his son’s toys.

“A weight suspended on a stainless steel wire ran through a small hole in a brass disk. When the wind moved the weight, the wire touched the disk and closed an electrical circuit, lowering the water jets.”

Closeup of the spire

The fountain was refurbished in 2013, with new computerised LED lighting providing 17 million colours instead of the original four. Totally appropriate for such a space-age design.

Watching the water

I had fun exploring the different angles and moods of the fountain.

Underneath the fountain

Depending on where I was standing, it looked like two different days.

When you can’t make up your mind which sky to use as a background, use them both

Cloud cover

More of those water jets

Water chaos

Thank you, Open House, for the history lesson. I’ll be paying more attention to the fountain (and the Tom Samek mosaic on the walls) next time I’m passing through.

The mural at the fountain

And, a random piece of trivia. The UK’s Roundabout Appreciation Society called the railway roundabout the World’s Best Roundabout in 2015.