Director Roger Beeston, was appointed as a Heritage Advisor to the Melbourne City Council towards the end of last year.
India
Architectural historian, Anthony Hemingway, recently traveled to India as part of a team from AusHeritage – Australia’s international cultural heritage network. The team visited a number of sites, firstly to Santiniketan, north of Calcutta (Kolcatta), to collaborate in the development of a functional brief for identifying critical aspects of a proposed museum for Rabindranath Tagore.
One of Mr Tagore’s houses, Santinikaten
Next, an open forum on heritage issues was held at Loreto College in Calcutta, in conjunction with INTACH. Then a training forum/workshop was held in Kerala with the Institute for Management in Government. The focus of the workshop was on equipping Museum staff to manage major risks to cultural collections.
Calcutta (Kolcatta)
Later, the AusHeritage team, accompanied by David Holly, Australian Consul-General to southern India, undertook a reconnaissance visit to the Kamaraj memorial house in Virudhunagar (near Trivandrum). K. Kamaraj, 1903 – 1975, was an Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the house is where K. Kamaraj grew up. The purpose of the visit was to investigate the potential for preparing a Conservation Management Plan for the site.
Anthony also gave a presentation at the Madras Christian College at Chennai on the topic - “Conservation Management Plans – Managing Change.” For further information on the trip, visit the AusHeritage website at http://www.ausheritage.org.au.
Summer school
Margaret Nicoll attended a summer school on “The Conservation of Traditional Buildings” held by David Young at Canberra University in January. Site visits included the 1860s London Bridge Homestead at Queenbeyan, the nearby city of Goulburn and 1830s dairy at Duntroon.
A limewashing workshop was held at Cooma Cottage, Yass. The property was bought by Hamiton Hume (of Hume and Hovell fame) in 1839, who proceeded to extend the ‘cottage’ over the next 20 years, including adding his own Palladian style wings and Greek Revival portico.
The ‘cottage’
Busy lime washers!
Ensor
Work has begun at ‘Ensor’, Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, a property owned by the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. RBA have been commissioned by the hospital to document and manage the refurbishment of the roofs and facade of the substantial double storey Victorian villa. The building was designed c1874-5 by architects Crouch and Wilson, whose other well-known projects included the Victorian School for the Deaf, Prahran Town Hall, Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind and over 40 churches.
The elaborate facade incorporates many decorative cast iron and zinc elements, including a column design patented by Angus McLean in 1873. The columns are constructed of sheet metal and filled with concrete to give the appearance of solid metal but were lighter and cheaper to construct. Miles Lewis has written about these columns and the information can be found on page 8.07.11 at the following link: http://www.mileslewis.net/australian-building/pdf/08-metals/8.07-ornamental-cast-iron.pdf.
Ensor from Victoria Parade
Maryborough Railway Station
Stage 3 works at Maryborough Railway Station, refurbishing the platform verandah, are now well underway. The design of the platform verandah includes a glazed and timber lantern roof and purpose built eaves gutter with curved structural downpipes incorporated into cast iron columns. Many of the original ribbed glass panes to the lantern roof will be retained.
Although the extension of the railway line from Castlemaine to Maryborough had been considered since 1859, the first Maryborough Railway Station building, an example of the Dunolly Style, was not constructed until 1874. The existing station building, which quickly replaced the earlier one, was opened in late 1891. An article in the local paper of the time commented that the new station building made a large impression on the traveller arriving by train and that the interiors would be suitable for a mansion, though many years would pass before Maryborough could live up to its station.
Painted column reflecting original paint scheme
Original drawings of the column
Recently, there has been a renewal of interest in the station and limited passenger services have been re-established. It has become a destination on the central Victorian Goldfields tourist route.
Strathbogie Shire
Work has progressed to the second round of heritage sites to be included in the Strathbogie Shire Heritage study. The shire contains many interesting sites, not just buildings, including the Eliza Forlonge memorial (see photo above). Mrs Forlonge, along with her sister-in-law, imported the first wool sheep into Victoria in 1835.
Visit the following website for further information on the ‘Kelly country’ shire http://www.strathbogie.vic.gov.au.
Cenotaph
Speaking of memorials, the Melbourne University cenotaph was moved from its original site when the carpark was constructed in 1972 under the south lawn. However, there is limited room at the present site and RBA have been commissioned to document the second relocation of the cenotaph to a more prominent site. This will allow greater access for participation in Anzac ceremonies; particularly poignant with the 100 year anniversary of the first landing at Gallipoli in the not too far distant future.
We’ve been designing an addition to the home of our lovely clients JP and Kathy, and we decided to turn it into gingerbread in the spirit of the season! We hope JP, Kathy and their kids enjoy eating it as much as we enjoyed making it - could be a new Christmas tradition at RBA!
Laveter House relocation, Assisi Centre, Rosanna
Anyone been watching Mega Moves on SBS? RBA is gearing up to relocate a historic Queen Anne era house (pictured below) in early 2011, to enable the redevelopment of the Assisi aged care facility. Stay tuned for more details!
Keith Haring mural - conservation
RBA has been commissioned by Arts Victoria to prepare a Conservation Management Plan for the site of the former Collingwood Technical School (in anticipation of Circus Oz moving in), including a mural painted by Keith Haring in a single day in 1984. The mural is gradually fading and its future has attracted much community interest and concern. An appropriate conservation method is under development for this fragile piece of local heritage. You can get involved by joining the facebook discussion here.
Maryborough Railway Station – verandah restoration
Stage 3 of the planned overall restoration works for the station has been documented and works are expected to commence shortly.
Roxburgh Park farm shed – adaptive re-use
We’re currently working with the City of Hume to develop an adaptive re-use strategy for this unique agricultural structure in Melbourne’s outer north.
Former stables – interpretation strategy
We are assisting Grant Amon Architects with interpretive elements of a new fit-out to an unusual State heritage-listed two storey stables in Melbourne’s CBD, dating from c1900. Horses were originally stabled on the first floor!
End-of-year madness is almost upon us and before it descends, we thought we’d take the time to share with you a few recent developments at RBA.
Not long ago we said farewell to staff member Anna James, who has jetted off to explore the world. We wish Anna all the best on her travel adventures!
We have since welcomed a new staff member, Emi Whyte, a recent graduate of architecture from Deakin University.
Our resident historian Anthony Hemingway just spent 3 weeks in Indonesia. Back in the office this week, we are looking forward to seeing some holiday snaps and will be sure to share a few with you soon!
National Architecture Week took place in the last week of October and staff member Eleanor Chapman was involved in coordinating a Pecha Kucha night at BMW Edge, Fed Square, as part of the festivities.
Speakers took the stage to explore the place of architecture in your city, your neighbourhood and your home. In Australia, the apparent contribution of architects to society is small, with only a tiny fraction of housing (an estimated 5% or less) being designed by architects, and a broad perception that architectural design is out of reach to all but a wealthy few. But is there more to the role than meets the eye?
A crowd of 300+ was immersed in the compelling visual and cerebral feast that is the global Pecha Kucha phenomenon. 12 talented individuals (x 20 slides x 20 seconds) delivered snapshots of architecture working in unexpected and inspiring ways. A frenzied sketching session (courtesy of the folks at Pin Up Your Doodle) and a surprise live cross to architect Peter Corrigan’s RMIT design studio via webcam made it an extra special night!
Check out the talk given by Tamsin O’Neill (editor of Green magazine) here.
What’s Pecha Kucha? Find out here!
RBA Architects + Conservation Consultants is pleased to announce the launch of our brand new website! The site brings you a selection of design and heritage management projects completed by RBA over 15+ years in operation, and profiles our team, our services and our values. We’ll be keeping you posted with the latest news from our office in this section, so feel free to check in here for updates. In the meantime, we hope you’ll take a moment to have a look around our new online home and make yourself comfortable…starting here.
Thanks to web designers Dylan and Joel at Superbia!
…the RBA team
Builder unearths gold rush cottage
JENNY BROWN
June 29, 2010
Once an eyesore, the refurbished Singapore Cottage is now of state significance
What appeared to be a dump turned out to be a historic prefab from Singapore.
Anthony Morton became an accidental champion of heritage when, on the way to bowling over ‘‘a ramshackle dump’’ in South Melbourne, he complied with a heritage sign-off requirement and had it looked over by conservation architect Roger Beeston.
The specialist builder was planning to erect two townhouses on the 240-square-metre block.
But Beeston put his head up through the ceiling manhole ‘‘and found Chinese markings on the timber framing’’.
With that, it was back to the drawing board for Morton, and on to deeper research for Beeston, who was eventually able to confirm that the 56-square-metre cottage with the unfortunate aluminium windows and a skin of concrete render was a mid-19th-century, prefabricated ‘‘Singapore Cottage’’ and as such, of great importance to Victoria’s building history.
Read the article here
