MEDIA RELEASE

BRICKWORKS HERITAGE HAS INTERNATIONAL APPEAL

The Royal Exhibition Buildings may not be the only Australian historic place of world significance.

A visit by international industrial heritage expert, Canadian John Carter, will rekindle the question of whether Brunswick’s Hoffmans Brickworks might also be of international heritage significance.

Mrs Dianne Weidner OAM, Chair of the National Trust, and Ms Carmel Ward of Save the Brickworks, today announced that they would be making a joint nomination of the brickworks site to the Australian Government’s prestigious new National Heritage List.

“This was the first brickworks in Australia to combine steam power and the new Hoffman kiln to industrialise what had previously been an essentially cottage industry,” said Mrs Weidner. “It is now the most comprehensive historic brickworks complex remaining in Australia, and possibly in Britain and North America.”

“We are concerned that the present proposals to adapt these important buildings for office use will destroy much of their significance,” said Ms Ward. “Our ability to understand the process will be severely compromised and individual buildings, such as the gatehouse, remain under threat.”

The Trust and Save the Brickworks support less intensive development, such as artists studios or exhibition spaces, for the most important buildings, which they believe would be more sympathetic than dividing these unique spaces into privately owned offices.

The two groups believe that the site offers wonderful opportunity for interpretation and development as a community facility under a public-private partnership such as those adopted for industrial sites in Europe.

They vowed to continue their campaign to preserve the most important parts of this complex.

Dr John C Carter, currently in Australia as a Visiting Fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, will be the key speaker at a forum on ‘Adaptive Reuse or Adaptive Destruction: the challenges of conserving industrial heritage places,’ on Wednesday 9 February.

The forum will be held at Clarendon Terrace, 208-212 Clarendon Street East Melbourne. The forum is free, but please book with the National Trust on 9656 9826 or email nathan.obrien@nattrust.com.au

John Carter has been campaigning to protect heritage values of the Don Valley Brickworks in East York, Ontario for the past 10 years. He is a former chair of the East York Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee, former executive member of the Toronto Preservation Board, and currently a member of the Education Committee of Community Heritage Ontario.

For further information please contact:

National Trust: Jim Gard’ner. Ph 9656 9804 or David Moloney. Ph 9656 9823

Save the Brickworks: Carmel Ward. Ph 0409 334 737