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.
We all know the Arts Centre spire was originally to be solid and copper, but did you know there were in between designs ? Found in my boxes a research paper i did in 1991, looking at the evolution of the design – and it went from the original 1960 relatively small 2000 seat opera theatre, 1000 seat concert hall and 300 seat theatre (all underground!), with copper spire, to adding a platform to connect to the river, to doubling the size of each theatre by the early 70s, and then various wider ‘see through’ spire designs, then by 73 the Concert Hall separated out at first as low as possible, under landscaping, then a bit higher (called the flying saucer design), then the final design by about 1977, with a lot of structure above ground in both buildings, and the ‘tutu’ space frame spire. In the process the prominence of the spire was lost, you don’t really see it from princes bridge – which was the point of my paper.
Storey of Melbourne 