24 December 2020:

My 1991 proposal to give the Arts Centre a new spire instead of finishing the then existing short one- by putting it on the concert hall instead. Something like the spire we were going to get back in the 60s. Can’t recall whether I thought some or all would’ve copper, but certainly not plain white space frame.

Repost 2020: We all know Roy Grounds’ Arts Centre spire was originally meant to be solid and copper, but did you know there were in between ‘mesh’ designs ? Found a research paper I did in 1991, looking at the evolution of the design – the original neat 1960 proposal (pics 4-6) had a 2000 seat opera theatre, 1000 seat concert hall and 300 seat theatre, all entirely underground! By 1970 each theatre had grown, plus the ground was marshy, and a solid spire would be heavy, so it was decided to put the 2500 seat concert hall in a separate structure on the rivers edge (connected with a platform over city road), which Grounds initially tried to hide or at least keep very low (yes one was called the flying saucer design). The theatres building was now partly out of the ground, and larger, so he came up with various ‘see through’ spire designs, ending up with the ‘tutu’ space frame spire in about 1975 (last pic). In the process the urban prominence of the spire was lost, which was the point of my paper. The photos can now be found in the Performing Arts Collection.

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