On Paper: Exhibition showcases proposals for Adelaide that never were

Updated

An exhibition is celebrating the radical, but failed dreams of the 1900s to transform Adelaide into a leading world metropolis.

On Paper, at the UniSA Architecture Museum, is part of the city's first Festival of Architecture and Design.

Curator, Dr Julie Collins, shared some of the daring designs and explained why they never became reality.

King William Street subway - 1968

As part of the sweeping Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study plan of 1968, the subway would have included three underground, rapid train stations, including this one at Hindley Street.

A shopping centre was to sit on the level between the street and the tracks.

Large protests against a network of Los Angeles-style freeways brought the plan undone.

They would have had to dig up the entirety of King William Street, from North Terrace to South Terrace. Everything was about getting to places fast, and not worrying about what you could see along the way. It was an Americanisation of the transport system.

Victoria Square - 1971

Adelaideans have never been fully satisfied with the square at the heart of their planned city, and architect and town planner Denis Winston provided another vision to overhaul Victoria Square in 1971.

Mr Winston's plan incorporated an underground train station, and he cleverly predicted a number of features that would become part of Victoria Square in the present day.

Its features included a stepped-down seating area with a fountain in the northern end, and temporary food venues in the square as well.

The difference is they blocked off the car access, and it's more of a square-shape. People have been trying to come up with grand schemes for Victoria Square since 1836.

Adelaide Town Hall - 1929

A group of Melbourne architects won a competition to remodel Town Hall on its 60th anniversary.

It was to feature a 200 foot, 18-storey building that would have towered over the city for several decades.

The plan was dropped because of the £400,000 cost.

One of the only good things to come out of the Great Depression was that the Adelaide Town Hall survived in its original condition, and we still have it with us today.

Imperial building - 1910s

No-one knows where in Adelaide local architect Arthur G Sanders intended for this grand building to be constructed.

Dr Collins believed the building would have had retail space on the ground floor, and then possibly offices or apartments upstairs, judging by the window design.

It is quite sad that some of the beautiful designs that architects put their heart and soul into never eventuated.

Brighton hotel - 1939

The art deco Lynton Hotel would have sat on the Esplanade in beachside Brighton, on a site that later became the Bindarra Reserve.

Dr Collins thought the hotel may not have gone ahead because of World War II.

It's very streamlined with beautiful balconies overlooking the ocean. It probably didn't go ahead because it was the eve of World War II, and finances would have been directed away to help the war effort.

South Australian Centenary Memorial - 1936

Adelaide architect Russell S Ellis entered this unsuccessful design in a competition to commemorate the centenary of European settlement in South Australia.

It would have been placed at Glenelg's Moseley Square, where the current statue of HMS Buffalo sits.

It's a very art deco and modern monument to the 1836 settlers.

Plan of Adelaide and suburbs - 1919

The visionary founder of Adelaide's layout, Colonel William Light, was responsible for the city's much-loved ring of parklands.

But it is not widely known that an ambitious plan 100 years later, by government town planner Charles Reade, proposed a second ring of parklands through the outer suburbs.

Dr Collins said the additional ring would have been about five kilometres out of the city and would have provided another "green zone" leading to a new growth area beyond that.

The extra ring of parklands actually seems like a really sensible and wise idea to have in Adelaide. He also envisioned a coastal park between Marino and Outer Harbor, something that is finally being realised today.

The exhibition will run at the Foyer Gallery of the Kaurna Building at UniSA's City West Campus from October 13 to November 6, 2015.

Topics: architecture, design, architectural, urban-development-and-planning, community-and-society, adelaide-5000, sa, australia

First posted