While photographing the east end of the city in 1984 from atop the seven storey CML building in Hunter Street, with its commanding view of the city and harbour, I was struck by how little had changed since earlier that century.
Apart from the "Nurses Home" at Pacific Street, the King Street parking station, and whatever that was that replaced the Strand Theatre, it was a timeless cityscape. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Newcastle's custodians preserved this time capsule both as a reminder of more elegant architecture, and as a must-see destination in the future of tourism, that would surely boom when the boomers boomed.
Maybe it was a bit too much to ask.
Yet even back then the forces of urban renewal and heritage constraints had created the age of "facadism." A practice that even today, forty years on, is alive and well and working its way down the Old Town in Hunter Street's Newcastle Mall.
But it's not a bad thing, right?
What is Facadism?
"Facadism" is the demolition of a building while retaining street-facing walls during construction of a new building behind it - or within its shell. It doesn't always turn out as planned. A monstrous structure can ridicule a humble progenitor.
Typical of the challenge and conflict that confront architects is, for example, headquarters of the Chilean shipping company CSAV in Valparaiso, pictured.
Researching the subject will find more articles denigrating the idea than discussing technicalities. As you might guess, facadomy and façadectomy are two negative and rather scathing terms coined last century when excessive examples of facade retention began to proliferate.
The terms probably originated in the United States when massive redevelopments - such as a defeated proposal for a 290 metre tower on top of the famous Grand Central Terminal in New York - were visualised.
The procedure was possibly stimulated in Australia as a placating defence against protests and "green bans" that were a response to ongoing demolition of Sydney's historic buildings in the 1970s.
"Destructive renewal" has been happening for millennia but, with affluence and leisure time, heritage protection became a devotion in affluent societies, and the conservation movement was born. Governments were compelled to acknowledge heritage. For example, the Heritage Council of NSW was legislated in 1977.
City of Newcastle ("Council" hereafter), while permitting facade retention case by case, nevertheless seems to frown a little on the idea in it's document Newcastle City Centre Heritage Conservation Areas Review (view here as PDF document). In lists of things that "undermine the integrity and intactness" of the city centre, one that recurs is: "Facadism of local heritage buildings, rather than retention of their three-dimensional form and adaptive re-use."
There, it's official!
Should We Worry?
The intent here is not to criticise facade retention (we'll leave that to the connoisseurs) but I do have "feelings" about the practice, and will discuss some examples in Newcastle (shown further below in the image gallery).
Our focus is on the "old town" - the CBD from Pacific Street in the east, westward to Brown Street. A distinct area Council recognises for its "strong heritage qualities, unique streetscapes and topographical features," described succinctly:
"The proximity and views of the harbour to the north framed by the steep topography of The Hill to the south are an important aspect of Newcastle City Centre's urban character"
That single sentence expresses perfectly why we are so attached to this picturesque little city that overlooks its beautiful harbour.
Above: Partial view of 'old town' from Market Square at right to Newcastle beachfront at distant left. Photographed in 2003, residential apartments have already 'facaded' several buildings in the foreground along Scott Street. Hard to see, but beneath the crane's tip is a parking station on the former David Cohen & Co warehouse site that retained its Bolton Street facade upon conversion in 1983. This demonstrates that facadism was well underway in Newcastle last century.
Like any citizen who watches the city transform in real time, I'm a little ambivalent about the results, and wonder how the developers might have forced their will to achieve them. Council has reasonably strict guidelines, and despite the bedlam and chaos of construction sites the plan seems to be working. In particular, the nooks, crannies, and lanes that made the old CBD so interesting are listed as elements (with many others) to be preserved:
Existing subdivision pattern and street layout, including preserving the human scale of development, the integrity of laneways and the fine grain of Henry Dangar's 1823 'Old Town' plan.
A recent visit to the former David Jones site was a heartwarming surprise. I never imagined such intensive development would include so much public space (albeit on private property). The entire city block is bisected by open air arcade.
Are Facades Heritage?
Is retaining the original look and feel of a city street paying homage to a bygone era of ornate design, or is it mere lip service, a hollow gesture? Should developers, unencumbered by these niceties, just get on with the eternal job of destructive renewal as they always have?
Do the young look at preserved artefacts, adorning the walls or walkways of a fast food outlet built on the bones of an old structure, and think "Isn't history wonderful?" I don't think so, because I don't look at such things either. I don't even see them.
We (and of course they) do, however, even subliminally, absorb a streetscape. It is a strong argument in favour of facade retention that streetscapes (and when entire iconic buildings are preserved, the cityscape) convey a sense of place, of being, of connection and of meaning to those who must walk them often, and those who live in them.
The point is made in City as Visual Language:
Raymond Curran’s 1983 book “Architecture and the Urban Experience” asked “Why do many cities of earlier eras appear visually rich, meaningful, and ‘legible’ while many modern cities appear stark and confusing?” He describes "the city as visual language and its effect on inhabitants."
While I appreciate the effort to keep an old front wall, I sense an element of the "con." A placation. Something Council does to appease historical societies, heritage folk, and a grey-haired Facebook community that berates Council for "their" every modification to "our" city.
Pictured: Street-level view in Newcastle City Mall viewed east in Hunter Street. It's difficult to readily apprehend the streetscape. Even if it weren't, only a tourist would consciously seek to do so. We locals are typically heads down on our missions.
In the clutter of the Hunter Street Mall we see only shop fronts. Who stops to look around and appreciate an ancient wall clasping the front of a shiny new tower?
Yes, we eventually glance up and unconsciously absorb the vista of old married to new. Upon entering a street we take it in whole and add it to our internal map of impressions, forming memories that stay with us for life.
How does all the change, these new vistas, affect me, a long-time citizen whose bond is strong with Newcastle and whose memory stretches far into last century? Memory crowded with images of the old city I grew up in. Do these fossilised building fronts, melded into the new, mollify feelings of loss for the old place? Have they any meaning for one who has trodden its sunny footpaths for over 70 years?
At a glance, at a distance, they're evocative, yes. Close up, under scrutiny, they seem a little grotesque. Almost like fakes, and nothing to do with whatever lies within.
Finally...
This article is an expression of surprise that façadism has been so extensive in the old town for so long, particularly now along the Hunter Street mall - ongoing, as I write.
The 'ambivalence' mentioned above is partly due to a realisation that facade retention is clearly not adaptive re-use. It's sole purpose is to retain a streetscape with a cursory nod to history. But the more one notices it, the more it seems a trivial, if not superficial, element that only confuses a new structure's design and compromises its form.
The term "adaptive re-use" implies that old buildings will be preserved or renovated in their entirety. Structures of "heritage significance" must, under our city's development control plan, be restored to original condition "based on evidence of original appearance."
The CML building (Colonial Mutual Life) at 110 Hunter Street where I worked forty years ago had been renovated inside to a degree that proved its suitability for re-purposing, and convinced me that these old buildings don't necessarily constrain in that regard. But they are from an earlier time, and can be quite out of place when the needs of a city centre change from office to residential, or when the forms of residence and workplace evolve to open plan with interiors that need to take advantage of modern materials and surfaces.
We can certainly understand the agonising that goes on in a developer's office, that the intended use of a redevelopment is incompatible with the rotting old structure with its stifling rooms, narrow corridors, and miserly windows. No amount of repurposing can fix that if the tenant wants a glassy open space in which to live, work, or collaborate.
On one hand I greatly appreciate the handiwork and gracious elements of old buildings and want them preserved in their completeness. On the other, I feel impatient at their masks stuck, almost irreverently, to the front of new developments. As if the developer is mocking us, presuming our heritage demands with: "Are you happy now?"
Just be done with it. Build something new and beautiful.
In conclusion, when I began to seriously think about the subject of this article, it evoked a scene from the RoboCop film that is almost an allegory for facadism.
When the policeman Alex Murphy is critically injured, his brain and spine are transferred into a cyborg body to create RoboCop.
His wife Ellen is torn by the robotic creature that bears her husband's face. She is convinced he is alive inside the shell, and can't accept that his face is... just a facade on a new body.
Ellen Murphy: Alex? Don't you know me? Don't you remember me? Alex, it doesn't matter what they've done to you. I...
RoboCop: [leans forward] Touch me.
Ellen Murphy: [touches his lip] It's cold.
RoboCop: [referring to his face] They made this to honor him.
Ellen Murphy: No , I...
RoboCop: Your husband is dead. I don't know you.
(The new buildings in the Old Town are whispering this to me)
Gallery
What follows are views of several construction sites in the old town precinct. I won't embarrass myself by pretending to know what architectural design elements these represent, or anything else that requires expert commentary. What you see is what you get.
Below: View east in 2014 at the corner of Hunter and Bolton streets. Former ANZ Bank at No.16 Bolton St. at left. Behind the "Newcastle NOW" sign are residential properties peeking over old facades.
Photographed 22 February 2019. This is one example of facade retention that I wholeheartedly agree with. Its prominence is overwhelming, and very few adult Novocastrians will not be able to name it as David Jones' former department store. Older citizens will add that it was originally Scott's Ltd.
To the left above and more fully below shows the care required when a facade is prevented from collapse after its internal walls are removed. It demands the finesse and attention to detail of an archaeological excavation!
2014. Above and the following two images show work behind the former David Jones store, which occupied almost the entire city block. Above is the view from Perkins Street with the Wolfe Street telephone exchange building behind the truck.
Below, standing near the Wolfe St exchange, look at the rear of David Jones' original store at the corner of Hunter and Perkins streets. Second below is a closer look at the facades from behind. They approximate 170 Hunter Street.
2019. Above: Wolfe Street telephone exchange building at the corner of King and Wolfe streets. Next right is the preserved facade with rounded brickwork that was the side entrance to David Jones, inside which was their famed and greatly missed delicatessen.
Below and next below: Through the gap another view of the rear of 170-ish Hunter Street.
December 2023. Four years later, this pleasing tower with rounded corners has appeared (at right). And while it accords with the preserved facade at its foot, it is an excellent example of architectural style that needs no facade or heritage baggage and would, in the author's mind, be an excellent replacement in full with its own original street entrance. I haven't liked a new building so much since the Newcastle Permanent's headquarters at the corner of King and Union streets.
Above at left, and in detail below, period brickwork, including the separate frontpiece of Soul Pattinson's chemist shop clinging to, if not pretending to support, a new (residential?) complex.
Above in 2023: Corner of Hunter and Thorn streets. Lips, don't unpurse.
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