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One of Australia’s best loved and most recognised sandstone buildings, Sydney Town Hall, will be wrapped in a custom made, photographic mesh so its beauty can still be enjoyed during restoration works.
The first stage of the City’s four-year $33 million conservation project, which begins in February, is the conservation of the clock tower and is expected to last 20 months. But the state of the art mesh wrap, which is 100 per cent recyclable, will ensure it looks like the real deal from a distance.
The labour intensive works will include stonework repairs, the addition of seismic bracing, repairs to the historic clock and flagpole and the replacement of about 26 cubic metres of stonework.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the Sydney Town Hall represented the civic heart of Sydney and the photograph hoarding would allow Sydneysiders and visitors to still enjoy its grand façade in the meantime.
“A similar high-quality hoarding was used on the Queen Victoria Building and from a distance you would think you were looking at the actual building,” the Lord Mayor said.
“These photographic hoardings have also been used on important buildings at tourist spots around the world so that travellers can still have a sense of the building’s façade and presence on the street.
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“The City has a duty of care to restore and look after heritage significant buildings such as the Sydney Town Hall, the Queen Victoria Building, the State Library of NSW and the Art Gallery of NSW.”
Specialist heritage banker masons will soon begin carving embellished designs into fresh sandstone to replace existing pieces that cannot be salvaged. The Pyrmont yellow-block sandstone is being supplied by the NSW Department of Public Works, which recently reclaimed a stockpile of Pyrmont sandstone.
Special re-pointing mortar to attach the replacement pieces is undergoing development and testing by a world-class mortar manufacturer in Scotland.
The building will also benefit from new lighting design with LED fittings to highlight the highly ornamental carved sandstone and reduce energy use by 50 per cent.
The building, which is a mix of architectural styles with a grand neoclassical “temple” entrance, was previously restored in 1920 and 1981.
City of Sydney curator Margaret Betteridge’s pictorial history book, Sydney Town Hall: The Building and its Collection, was published in 2008 by the City of Sydney, and contains a wealth of information about the building’s heritage, architecture and history.
In 1867, the then Municipal Council of Sydney held a competition for the design of a 35,000 Town Hall building, which was won by a Tasmanian architect, J. H. Willson.
The following year, on 4 April, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, laid the foundation stone – cheered on by 2000 well-wishers.
But it was another 22 years before the building was officially opened at a ceremony in 1889, attended by several thousand distinguished guests, including Sir Henry Parkes and the then governor of NSW, Lord Carrington.
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“It may be thought that some of the aldermen were extravagant in their ideas when they accepted the plans for this hall,” then Mayor John Harris said at the opening.
“But it must be remembered that the building in which we are now assembled has not been erected for the requirements of today, but of future generations.”
In the 122 years since, the Sydney Town Hall has hosted thousands of civic functions, school concerts and entertainment events, while the remark, “meet me at Town Hall steps” has become a familiar refrain.
The 2.5-metre-diameter Town Hall clock – purchased by the Council in 1884 for 1375 from “reliable” British clockmakers Gillett, Bland & Co. – has also stood the test of time: the clock’s mechanism has been wound by hand for more than 120 years.
