Hollowed out house
I love peeking through the gaps on neighbourhood redevelopments, like this one on Campbell Street, Surry Hills.
Sometimes the city streets seem so fixed – apartment blocks and shops and street signs are such planned things.
I love moments of change – not so much when restaurants or other businesses fail, that’s always sad – but those moments of transition when a house or a warehouse implodes to form something new, they’re totally exciting for me.
The Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, warehouse below has been in redevelopment for months. At first, you could peek in and see the hollowed out shell. But now it’s pretty dark and full of floors.
I guess I just like moments when you realise how ephemeral the buildings and structures of the city are, it makes me like them a lot more.
I get sad when I see a warehouse or old building destroyed or imploded. Unlike Melbourne, we have a habit of ruining the past of the city and our unique spaces with cold, harsh buildings with no character. The CBD and southern end of it around Surry Hills possibly the best example.
I think a lot of my sentimentality is due to the memories had dancing in and around that architecture in the 1990s..
Reclaiming the spaces and giving them new purpose I think is the way forward. Melbourne has done a pretty good job of this, but still I think they will lose out to development $$.
MattC
12 Feb 10 at 12:32 pm
Totally agree – on the visual thrills of terraces and warehouses and the rest of the stuff that happens on city streets *and* the dancing – sorry if I came off gung ho for redevelopment. I’m not into homogeneous streets of identikit built form. I’m just curious about the insides.
matt
12 Feb 10 at 3:51 pm
Houseful of hollow?
Pat
15 Feb 10 at 1:25 pm