open house richmond 2024

Open House Richmond was a one-off Open House event held in February 2024 as part of the Richmond Bicentenary.

Located on the land of the Mumirimina people of the Oyster Bay Nation, Richmond hosted a number of events between December 2023 and February 2024 to commemorate the history of the town.

Having attended many Open House Hobart events in the past, my sister and I decided it was well past time that we volunteered at one of these weekends, so we put our hands up to help out on the Saturday morning.

You can read about what we did here.

I finally got to hold a clipboard! (NB not the building I was volunteering at) Photo by Carryl M.

We were allocated to the St John the Evangelist Church precinct for three hours on Saturday. Our job was to tally the number of visitors and ask them for their postcodes. If you’ve been to Open House events before, you’ll know this drill.

St John the Evangelist Church

The church (dating back to 1835) and the old school house (1843) were open to the public. The 1959 presbytery wasn’t open, but visitors were invited to walk around and admire its modernist excellence.

Wesley Stacey Exhibition

Before we headed off to the church, we took a look at the Wesley Stacey photo exhibition of Richmond in the 1960s. Wes Stacey (1941-2023) was an Australian architectural and documentary photographer who came to Richmond in 1968 to document the town.

Wesley Stacey 1968 Richmond

The exhibition notes tell us

Wes was in Richmond for a few days in 1968 during which he brought an artist’s eye to the town just prior to its emergence from a century in the doldrums. Bypassed by roads, rail and causeways, Richmond settled into a period of reduced relevance and quietude, which saved it from unsympathetic development. Wes’ photographs record a very locally-focussed Richmond and present a perspective on the village just prior to its reinvention as a heritage tourism hot spot.

It was cool to see this photo of the church we were about to visit.

Wesley Stacey’s 1968 photo of St John the Evangelist Church

The exhibition was curated by Richmond Bicentenary Creative Director, Noel Frankham. The photographs form part of the “Wes Stacey archive of architectural photographs, 1968-1972”, held by the National Library of Australia.

It’s an amazing collection of almost 3,000 photos.

St John the Evangelist Precinct

Three hours was a lot of time to explore the area in between visitors. Here’s some photos.

Old Catholic School House (1843)

Old School House

Old School House

Old School House

Old School House

St John the Evangelist Church (1835)

Church toppers

Church seen from the road

The church and the presbytery

The Presbytery

The original church presbytery (date unknown) eventually become a convent and was subsequently replaced by in the 1930s by a new catholic school and convent. In 1929, the old school house was converted into a presbytery, presumably temporarily.

The current presbytery was designed by Paul Fox in 1957. The newly appointed parish priest, Rev Fr JB Reed had the design approved by the Archbishop Most Rev G Young DD, and it was completed in 1959 by the builder Mr E H Hewitt of Lindisfarne.

Presbytery front door

It’s a two-bedroom house with, we were told, an ensuite bathroom, which was apparently very uncommon in the 1950s.

Presbytery seen from the old school house

At the building’s blessing and opening on 15 March 1959, The Mercury observed that, ‘although modern in design, the presbytery has been built so that it in no way interferes with the antiquity of the church’.

A pair of crosses

Windows

The end

Detail

Lines

Strong verticals

More strong verticals

I had a lovely morning exploring what I could of this wonderful building and meeting and greeting visitors to the school house. It was interesting to hear some of the stories people shared.

I think part of the fun of Open House is to meet people with common interests (or even uncommon interests!) and to learn interesting things about our built heritage.

And the day wouldn’t be complete without . . .

The Richmond Tourist Amenities

This was presented as an example of ‘contemporary architecture within a historic setting’. 

 The complex was commended in the 2004 and 2005 Tasmanian architecture awards:

“This building deserves recognition because it seeks to contextualise, within an historic setting. Through means other than imitation of historic forms. It is a well-considered approach, which reworks components of the familiar without pastiche. It also provides an innovative plan for an often maligned building type.”

From 1+2 Architecture

Thanks to everyone who made this weekend possible, especially Katie and Jen from Open House HQ, who do an amazing job of putting the program together.

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.