The adaptation and refurbishment of the Grainger Museum in Melbourne has been completed to designs by Lovell Chen.

The Grainger Museum is both a memorial to its founder, Melbourne-born composer and pianist Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961), and a repository for his collection of compositions, recordings and artifacts.

Writing in 1955, Grainger explained that the contents were assembled with, "the main intention of throwing light upon the processes of musical composition — as distinct from performances of music — during the period in which Australia has been prominent in music, say from about 1880 on".

The museum was designed by John Gawler with input from Grainger himself, and built in two stages. The original single-storey brick pavilion with glass clerestory windows and hipped roof was completed in 1935. Curved wings projecting at angles from either side were added in 1938, creating a segmental courtyard space at the rear.

The new works include additions to the east gallery, the creation of a new rear courtyard café and a comprehensive upgrade of services. The works to the landscape were designed by Oculus Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.

The installation of the exhibits is scheduled for early 2010.

[ photos: Trevor Mein, Mein Photo ]

The brickworks that produced the materials from which many of the early buildings in Canberra were constructed are the subject of a detailed heritage assessment by Lovell Chen.

Yarralumla Brickworks includes six kilns dating from c.1916 to the 1960s. The earliest among them, including a Staffordshire kiln — the only example in Australia — were fan-driven, obviating the requirement for tall chimney stacks that might impose on views of Canberra. The last kiln built at the site, constructed in the 1950s, broke with that tradition being 46m high and visible in views across the Molonglo River valley. A large quarry used to excavate shale from 1913 to the 1940s is directly east of the brickworks.

Yarralumla Brickworks closed in 1976. Since then there have been numerous proposals to revive the site, including its adaptation as a tourist attraction, residential development and hotel complex. We have been engaged to review the Conservation Management Plan for the site, and prepare a strategy for adaptive reuse and development.

[ photo courtesy: National Archives of Australia ]

Our heritage team is updating the Conservation Management
Plan for Melbourne Town Hall, a city centre landmark designed by Joseph Reed.

Melbourne Town Hall, built and fitted out between 1867 and 1873, was an expression of the city's wealth and growth following the gold rushes of the 1850s and 1860s. It was far larger and more lavish that its predecessor (completed in 1853), a building designed by city surveyor James Blackburn on the same site at the corner of Swanston and Collins streets. The facility included a public hall, subsidiary reception spaces, administrative offices, the Lord Mayor's rooms and a council chamber, a combination of uses that the Town Hall complex retains today.

Since the 1870s, Melbourne Town Hall has been through four key phases of development, notably the construction of the Administration Building directly to the north of the Town Hall (1908-10), and the extension and adaptation works following a major fire in 1925. The new report is the first to document major refurbishment and development works carried out during the 1980s and 1990s.

Pictured is Melbourne Town Hall in the mid-1890s.

[ photo courtey: National Library of Australia ]

In the early 1840s, Superintendent Charles LaTrobe envisaged the 'Government Paddock' between Melbournes central grid and the Yarra River as a place of public recreation and amusement. Nearly 170 years later his vision still holds true.

Lovell Chen is assessing the long and varied history of the southern section of the former Government Paddock (now Yarra Park) ahead of the redevelopment of the National Tennis Centre, venue for the Australian Open.

Since the 1840s the area has been home to countless sports ovals, including the MCG and Richmond Cricket Club, both built in 1853 and still on their original sites. It was also the principal location for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

As well as sports and recreation, infrastructure works have played a major part in reshaping the once flood-prone paddock, including the realignment of the Yarra River (1890s), the extension of Swan Street (1875) and the construction a major rail and tram corridor since 1859.

The development and expansion of the National Tennis Centre will be rolled out over the next 10-12 years.

Pictured is an 1866 map of the area.