Peter Goers: Maughan Church is a modernist architectural gem — and it’s facing the wrecking ball
ONE of this city’s architectural gems is destined to be demolished because no-one cares enough about our heritage.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Uniting Communities seeks approval for $80 million building on site of historic Maughan church
- Uniting communities brings Promanage into fold
- Uniting Communities to demolish its historic Maughan Church for $60m development
- Peter Goers: Faith no more as we mourn end of Maughan Church
ON the way to brilliant ventriloquist David Strassman’s show at Her Majesty’s Theatre last Sunday night, I paused in Pitt St and was overcome with sadness at two things.
The thought of losing the grandeur of the glorious neo-gothic Maughan Church and a homeless man sleeping rough outside Uniting Communities.
No-one disputes the need for low-cost housing and accommodation for those with disabilities but will this deserving indigent ever be housed in the 24-storey glass tower built by Uniting Communities to replace Maughan Church?
Here’s a solution. Adelaide desperately needs a concert hall. We’ve lost so many theatres and halls — not helped by Adelaide University destroying one modernist theatre and, effectively, closing another.
Maughan Church could be ideal for all manner of concerts and a fine Adelaide Festival venue. Uniting Communities could build its glass tower behind Maughan Church.
I’m not holding my breath. Environment Minister Ian Hunter cancelled Maughan’s heritage listing and clearly welcomes the destruction of Adelaide’s only modernist cathedral. Did he look inside?
We seem to loathe heritage in Adelaide. We love glass boxes. The more glass apartments for rich people, dog boxes for cash-cow foreign students, and half-empty office towers we build, the happier we are. If we’re not destroying heritage, we love to compromise it. My heart used to sing as I passed a beautiful art deco office building on the corner of Wakefield St and Chancery Lane until its owners removed all aspects of its art deco design to make it look like any other office building.
The beautiful and classic AMP Building, at the corner of North Tce and King William St, has been tarted up with orange cladding, which is instantly dated and ghastly.
Other countries celebrate and feature buildings of the 1950s and ’60s in what is known as the internationalist style. We destroy them.
Apart from the SAHMRI building there is no great contemporary architecture in Adelaide. Just cheap and ugly.
No historic building has ever been replaced by anything better. We love glass towers and are about to get another one overlooking the Festival Centre. It’s galling that every developer who wants to raze a heritage building complains that it’s run-down and no-one uses it.
Who is to blame for that? They own the building and let it get run-down and inhibit its use. Thus Uniting Communities, tells us that Maughan Church, which its predecessors built in 1965, is falling apart.
“In its current state, the building’s value to the community has been limited and it is in need of repairs just to remain usable,” it says.
Well, Chinese and Sudanese congregations used it but, apart from that, Uniting Communities have done virtually nothing for years to promote the use of Maughan Church.
It could have hosted concerts, plays, events and markets for the millions of passers-by yearly.
It could be a great focus of a vibrant part of our city but it’s most-often closed.
You can’t wander in and admire one of the most dramatic and grand of Australian auditoriums.
I was told I would be invited to the final service at Maughan Church as a former congregant and someone passionate about Adelaide heritage.
It happened on May 15 and I was not invited and neither was the general public.
The last time I wrote about this, a correspondent blamed me for the loss of Maughan Church because I didn’t attend there and support it. He was right. Fewer than 25 per cent of Australians now attend church regularly.
What started as a mission attached to a church now no longer needs the Maughan Church. Its mission has overwhelmed worship. Fair enough. Bread before morals. Plus, the Uniting Church is lousy with churches which few attend.
Oddly, if any church had to go, I’d rather see Pilgrim Church sacrificed instead of the modernist Maughan.
We have so many colonial churches and only one modernist cathedral. Maughan Church is not only glorious but it’s listed by the Australian Institute of Architects as one of the most important 20th century buildings.
Who cares? Apparently, Ian Hunter, Uniting Communities and the Uniting Church don’t. Shame.
■ Peter Goers can be heard weeknights on 891 ABC Adelaide
WHAT’S HOT/WHAT’S NOT
HOT
■ Now salt is good for us
■ Clive Palmer gets out of Parliament easier than he gets out of sports cars
■ If the vastly wealthy St Peter’s College wants a footbridge over Hackney Rd, they should pay for it
■ Young Sarah Hanson, hairdresser. No relation.
■ Bring back vehicle rego stickers
NOT
■ We’ll pay a bigger gap at the doctors’ if the Coalition wins
■ This election ... are we nearly there yet?
■ Pauline Hanson keeps coming back like a cold sore
■ Crime wave of theft of hair straighteners. A curly problem.
■ Julie Bishop only knows about her own enormous superannuation
Reader letters: World War II POWs — we remember them
August 15: Readers have their say on Victory in the Pacific Day and a Melbourne traveller saying you can “basically do whatever you like over here” when it comes to social distancing.
Silly COVID restrictions need to go now
Despite SA’s coronavirus “cluster” passing, we’re still not allowed to stand at the pub or have more than 10 people at home. These restrictions are needlessly hurting businesses and families, writes Caleb Bond.