Hobart Supreme Court Conservation Management Plan
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SUPREME COURT SALAMANCA PLACE EXTERIOR VIEW • LEIGH WOOLLEY PHOTOGRAPH 2010 HOBART SUPREME COURT CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN PREPARED BY PETER FREEMAN CONSERVATION ARCHITECTS + PLANNERS MORUYA • CANBERRA • HOBART FINAL MAY 2012 • VOLUME 1 THE PLAN ‘An exemplary, enduring piece of public architecture that makes a poised contribution to the city of Hobart. The plaza between the two court buildings opens up a diagonal landscape link between St. David’s Park [above], and the adjacent Parliament Square and the Sullivans Cove waterfront. From Salamanca Place a slate base folds up like a piece of carved landscape and supports two sandstone-clad pavilions. This is a building that is indebted to classicism but carries the burden of a period of architecture much maligned for its material brutality. The use of materials here is super-direct and the detailing is studious.’1 1 The Australian Institute of Architecture's 2010 National Architecture Awards jury citation for the Supreme Court complex in Hobart. HOBART SUPREME COURT CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN 2012 • PREFACE CONTENTS1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Brief 1:1 1.2 The Curtilage for this Plan 1:1 1.3 Authorship Limitations & Structure for this Plan 1:1 1.4 Acknowledgements 1:2 2.0 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 2:1 Introduction 2:1 2.2 The Burial Ground and Cottage Green: 1804 to 1840s 2:1 2.3 The Burial Ground and the Salamanca Warehouses: 1840s to 1900 2:7 2.4 St David’s Park, Vacuum Oil Depot and Warehouses: 1900 to the 1970s 2:9 2.5 A Permanent Home for the Hobart Supreme Courts: 1975 to 2012 2:17 2.6 National Recognition for the Hobart Supreme Courts 2:34 2.7 Earlier Locations of the Hobart Supreme Courts 2:37 3.0 PHYSICAL OVERVIEW 3.1 Preamble 3:1 3.2 Townscape Context of the Hobart Supreme Court 3:1 3.3 Location and Entry 3:3 3.4 Function 3:4 3.5 Circulation 3:6 3.6 Architectural Form and Materials 3:7 3.7 The Precinct Landscape 3:11 3.8 The Hobart Supreme Court Interiors 3:14 3.5 Condition 3:16 4.0 ASSESSMENT & STATEMENT OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE 4.1 Previous Statements of Significance & Current Heritage Recognition 4:1 4.2 Comparative Significance 4:3 4.3 Assessment of Cultural Significance 4:6 4.4 Statement of Cultural Significance 4:8 5.0 CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT POLICY 5.1 Preamble 5:1 5.2 Cultural Significance 5:1 5.3 Moral Rights Requirements 5:7 5.4 The Functioning of the Supreme Courts 5:8 5.5 The Need for Intervention 5:10 5.6 Options for Intervention 5:11 5.7 A Nationally Significant Intervention 5:14 6.0 CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT POLICY STRATEGIES 6.1 Preamble 6:1 6.2 Conservation Management Policy Strategies 6:1 APPENDICES REFER VOLUME 2: APPENDICES 1 The header photograph, which appears throughout this Plan is a 2010 Leigh Woolley photograph of the Court complex from Salamanca Place HOBART SUPREME COURT CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN 2012 • CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Plan recommends the following conservation management policies for the Hobart Supreme Court precinct: GUIDING CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT POLICY: RETENTION & CONSERVATION OF SIGNIFICANCE The Hobart Supreme Court complex should be conserved, and the aim of conservation management should be to retain the cultural significance of the place. All conservation should be based on a respect for the existing fabric, use, associations and meanings. Conservation and adaptive reuse interventions require a cautious approach of changing as much as necessary but as little as possible. POLICY 1: THE SITE AS A MARKER OF ABORIGINAL & EUROPEAN OCCUPATION The recommended policy to rectify these absences would be to place interpretative markers, within the Precinct, to explain these associations. These markers [or panels] could be similar in style and form to those installations currently used with the Sullivans Cove area. POLICY 2: A HOME FOR THE HOBART SUPREME COURT The significance of the Courts precinct is now inseparable from its Salamanca Place address. The preferred conservation and redevelopment option will retain the Supreme Court presence on its current site. POLICY 3: THE FORM OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDINGS The preferred conservation and redevelopment option will retain the Supreme Court morphology of existing low-rise building. If a physical intervention is made the new intervention must be a similarly low-rise building. POLICY 4: THE AESTHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDINGS The preferred conservation and redevelopment option should retain the Supreme Court central [designed] path to the Park; however if that configuration became functionally impossible as part of satisfying the client’s functional and statutory obligations, the connection should be maintained along the northern [Park] boundary only. Should that option be pursued the Burra Charter Articles relating to new work within significant places must be followed. POLICY 5: THE TOWNSCAPE OF THE SUPREME COURT PRECINCT The preferred conservation and redevelopment option must retain the townscape, streetscape, and landscape integration of the Courts precinct within the Salamanca Place and St. David’s Park precinct. POLICY 6: THE ASSOCIATIONAL VALUES OF THE SUPREME COURT PRECINCT The proud tradition of historical display and interpretation should be pursued in any redevelopment of the Courts complex, preferably within the external and internal public areas within the Courts precinct. POLICY 7: THE AIA ENDURING ARCHITECTURE AWARD The Court’s tradition of display and interpretation should include the public display of the ‘Enduring Architecture’ award with an adjacent appropriate explanatory panel. HOBART SUPREME COURT CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN 2012 • EXECUTIVE SUMMARY POLICY 8: TASMANIAN HERITAGE REGISTER NOMINATION In view of the cultural significance of the precinct, stated conservation management policies and strategies are to guide any interventions to the precinct, in order to ensure that the significant elements of the building [external and internal spaces and detail] are conserved, commensurate with the briefed requirements of any proposed intervention. The precinct should be re-nominated for entry to the THR once proposed interventions are agreed with the stakeholders. POLICY 9: STATUTORY MORAL RIGHTS REQUIREMENTS The Department of Justice and the Supreme Court [as client] will be required to follow the requirements of the AIA Practice Note AN 10.02.101 and the Copyright Amendment [Moral Rights] Act 2000. Continued liaison with the design architect [Peter Partridge] will hence be essential for the successful carriage of any proposed redevelopment / intervention within the precinct. POLICY 10: THE FUNCTIONING OF THE SUPREME COURTS Interventions and alterations to the existing Courts buildings and surrounds to correct or ameliorate current functional problems, must be undertaken with due cognisance for the cultural significance of the place and its fabric. The conservation ethic of a ‘cautious approach of changing as much as necessary but as little as possible’, must apply to any intervention. POLICY 11: THE NEED FOR INTERVENTION The bifurcated nature of the Supreme Courts complex, the current necessity for upgrading of the Courts functions and systems, the need to rationalise outdated modes of operation, and to properly use currently under utilised space, means that change to the Court complex is inevitable. The proper and efficient use of the existing facilities, and their augmentation where necessary, will result in a Supreme Courts complex fit for another forty years of use. A used building is a conserved building. POLICY 12: OPTIONS FOR INTERVENTION: ‘CONNECT BUILDINGS’ If this option is pursued the following policies must be adhered to: the conservation ethic of a ‘cautious approach of changing as much as necessary but as little as possible’, must apply to any intervention; the Burra Charter requirements relating to new work within significant places must be followed; the new linkage building must be a recognisably modern intervention, must be no higher than the highest point of the Criminal Courts building, and must encroach as little as possible into the Salamanca Place forecourt of the complex; the designed form and detail and internal planning of both buildings, including the courts in the round should be retained as far as is feasible; the architectural palette of the original Court buildings in the link area may be changed only as much as is necessary and as little as possible; the slate paving and architectural forms of the Salamanca Place forecourt will inevitably be modified, however the palette of slate paving and cladding must be continued in any intervention; and any addition to the Courts at the St. David’s boundary must respect the heritage of the Park, and be modest in colour and form. POLICY 13: OPTIONS FOR INTERVENTION ‘MAINTAIN SEPARATION‘ If this option is pursued the following policies must be adhered to: the conservation ethic of a ‘cautious approach of changing as much as necessary but as little as possible’, must apply to any intervention; the Burra Charter requirements relating to new work within significant places must be followed;;the designed form and detail and internal planning of both buildings, HOBART SUPREME COURT CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN 2012 • EXECUTIVE SUMMARY including the ‘courts in the round’ should be retained as far as is feasible; and the necessary modifications to the slate paving and architectural forms of the Salamanca Place forecourt and plaza should continue the palette of slate paving and cladding, and the angular architectural forms of the original design. POLICY 14: OPTIONS FOR INTERVENTION: ‘A NEW SUPREME COURT SITE‘ The relocation of the Supreme Courts, and its vacating of the current site should only be undertaken as a ‘last resort’, and only if the continued conservation of this nationally significant precinct is guaranteed. POLICY 15: OPTIONS FOR INTERVENTION: ‘DO NOTHING’ A ‘do-nothing’ for the Supreme Courts should only be undertaken as a ‘last resort’, and only if the continued conservation of this nationally significant precinct is guaranteed.