Rebuilt and upgraded #AlexanderTheatre at #MonashUniversityClayton, originally 1967, #EgglestonMacdonaldandSecomb, a small scale monument in 60s idiom – @peterelliott.architects valiantly retained as much as possible given OH&S, expanded brief and #asbestostile cladding (!) (even though it’s not #heritagelisted), and stripped it back to structure, rebuilt and reclad – I like the patterned precast on the tower, but a flat pattern more like the original better ? And maybe the pods could have been more, I don’t know, solid, even in tile or brick ? (I’m very hard to please!) And sad to see interior conc block pattern gone. Also, the learning&teaching building uncomfortably close. The #Rotunda lecture theatre replacement looks pretty stylish, I like thin edged circular things.

#JohnWardle’s Learning & Teaching Building at #MonashUniversity just completed – great majestic interior spaces, liked the hanging brick bottles/kilns, but the thing was sort of impenetrable, hard to understand, even the inside, which had various linked meandering parts – and the exterior was so blank, no actual windows, just reflective glass, and the skylights gave it a factory look – for a ‘gateway’ building, it was massive, brooding, uninviting, yet not monumental, with that diaphanous mesh screening (which I like). Maybe none of that matters, maybe it works fine, given the generally amorphous campus out there, I guess I just hanker for quadrangles and clocktowers.

At first i thought ‘what an elaborate bin storage thing’ then realised it was last years #Mpavilion, the one by #RemKoolhaas, seems to have been plonked next to the front #MonashUniversity carpark – a bit wasted – why not somewhere in the middle where at least idle student might just sit in it ?? Or even just the other side of the carpark entry opposite the #AlexanderTheatre ??

Update: @monashmasterplan tells me it is popular.

From its original location :

• Uncategorized