Canberra’s Northbourne Public Housing precinct by modernist architect Sydney Ancher is under threat of demolition in ACT Government’s plans to redevelop the site.
The housing precinct, located on Northbourne Avenue, was originally designed by Ancher Mortlock Murray in the 1960s. The precinct consists of five housing types: towers, pair houses, three-storey flats, maisonettes and garden flats. The buildings are listed by the Australian Institute of Architects on its Register of Significant 20th Century Architecture as they represent the best example of Post-War International Style in Australia. The Statement of Significance reads “it appears [to be] Australia’s first and only true architectural example of the rationale of the Bauhaus principles used for public housing, based on the important example of the Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart, Germany.”
Karuah Maisonettes at Northbourne Public Housing Precinct in Canberra, facing demolition.
Image: ACT Land Development Agency
The DeBurgh Pair Houses at Northbourne Public Housing Precinct in Canberra will be retained.
Image: ACT Land Development Agency
Despite this, a 2014 masterplan for more than 1100 new apartments on the site proposes to retain only a handful of the existing buildings (all of them pair houses), while the rest are slated for demolition.
It has prompted the ACT Heritage Council to grant heritage protection for one of each of the five housing types. But the ACT Government has ignored the Heritage Council’s recommendations and intends to proceed with the proposed demolitions.
The Australian Institute of Architects has urged the ACT Government to follow the recommendations of the Heritage Council and protect a sample of each housing type on the site.
“We believe that consideration of the heritage attributes of the original housing scheme should form part of any proposed design,” said Andrew Wilson, the Institute’s ACT Chapter president.
Proposed masterplan of Northbourne Public Housing Precinct by Phillip Leeson Architects, Cox Architecture and Conrad Gargett Riddel Ancher Mortlock Woolley with heritage consultants Graham Brooks and Associates.
Image: ACT Land Development Agency
The masterplan, prepared by Phillip Leeson Architects, Cox Architecture and Conrad Gargett Riddel Ancher Mortlock Woolley with heritage consultants Graham Brooks and Associates, states that “the useful life of the buildings as social housing has reached its conclusion” and that “the existing density of development on such a prime site, while considered ‘high’ in the early 1960s, is now regarded as well below that appropriate for Northbourne Avenue as one of the most important main avenues in Canberra.”
But the Institute disagrees: “Despite the current state of some of the buildings within the precinct, there is architectural merit in the Post-war International Style of the original Sydney Ancher Northbourne housing scheme,” Wilson said. “We are confident a high-quality design which is sympathetic to the site’s heritage can be found for this important development.”
Proposed masterplan of Northbourne Public Housing Precinct by Phillip Leeson Architects, Cox Architecture and Conrad Gargett Riddel Ancher Mortlock Woolley with heritage consultants Graham Brooks and Associates.
Image: ACT Land Development Agency
Northbourne is situated along the proposed 12-kilometre light rail track that will run between Civic and Gungahlin. In February 2015, the ACT Government passed legislation that gives it power to declare any project within one kilometre of either existing or proposed lightrail track to be “related to lightrail,” and allow the government to ignore conservation, heritage or other advice, reported The Canberra Times.
The Government now faces a challenge from the ACT National Trust. In March 2015, the ACT National Trust lodged an appeal seeking to protect the whole precinct, not just a sample, in the Territory’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal. A decision is expected in June 2015. The proposed masterplan can be found here.
