Our buildings have history. Stop knocking them down

Yet another building I attach happy childhood memories too is being torn down to make way for a developer’s pay cheque, writes Lucy Carne. But by allowing this to continue, we’re destroying community connection.

Every time I walk past Tiffany & Co. in Queens Plaza, I despair.

Not at the crowd of glass-lickers gawking with no intention of buying diamonds, but at the fatality of one of Brisbane’s finest establishments.

Before it became a nationwide franchise churning out hot mochas and frittatas, The Shingle Inn was the place Brisbane locals would go in the city for a decent cup of tea.

As a child, I remember the sudden shock of slipping off sunny Edward Street into the darkness.

There in the bustling, mock-Tudor cafe we would slide into a wooden booth and kneel on the benches to reach the table.

Waitresses in puffed-sleeves and hats would bring my sister and me lime spiders and cinnamon toast and we would brim with delight.

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Even as a uni student, living in dilapidated share houses, I would occasionally meet my mother at The Shingle Inn.

The Shingle Inn on Edward Street was a beloved icon to so many Queenslanders. Picture: News Corp Australia

I realise with the maturity of hindsight that it was perhaps our way of trying to hold on to a childhood tradition, as I was fast slipping away as an adult.

And now it is long gone.

We should never have let them destroy The Shingle Inn.

Sure, the walnut booths have been dragged out of storage and re-erected at Brisbane City Hall, but we all know it’s just a pathetic resuscitation of the past.

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Cloudland, Festival Hall, Bellevue Hotel, the Regent Theatre interior, the TAB Building in Albion — we are too heartless and flippant in the destruction of Brisbane’s architectural ancestry.

And now it is the Schonell Theatre at the University of Queensland set for the wrecking ball.

An exemplar of 1970s design, with its brick arches, sun decals and celestial ceiling lights, the St Lucia icon has housed thousands of films, plays and political discussions.

It is the theatre on the campus where Queensland acting legends like Bille Brown and Jack Thompson, among others, took their first theatrical steps.

As our city continues to grow, more and more of our iconic landmarks are being torn down for internationally-designed buildings with no connection to who we really are. Picture: iStock

It was home to 4ZZZ radio station during the 70s and 80s, when they broadcast on the Bjelke-Peterson government’s corruption and police brutality.

It was where you could get an incredible pizza — named after a famous Italian film — and slide into creaky leather seats for a cheap movie.

It was also where, as a 15-year-old in an unforgiving red unitard, I starred as an oven “flame” in a ballet production of Hansel and Gretel.

Now the Schonell is set to be bulldozed and replaced in a $300 million makeover.

Award-winning Queensland playwright and UQ alumni Matthew Ryan says destroying the Schonell would destroy a piece of Queensland’s cultural history.

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“Performing in the same building as those who came before us allowed us to understand our place in Queensland’s cultural journey,” he wrote online.

Fellow playwright and UQ graduate Marcel Dorney also mourns its potential loss.

“The Schonell complex is a place where I learned as much if not more than I did in lectures, and when you take that opportunity away from students, you can’t put a dollar value on what you lose,” Dorney says.

A Department of Environment and Science spokesman confirmed to me on Friday that they are assessing whether the UQ Union complex, including the Schonell Theatre, is of state-level heritage significance and suitable for entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.

The University of Queensland’s Schonell Theatre is the next building scheduled to be torn down. Picture: Annette Dew/News Corp Australia

Yet, like sufferers of construction Stockholm syndrome, Brisbanites don’t seem bothered that another building is set to bite the dust.

Instead, we stand by and watch our unique heritage be demolished and replaced with alienating slabs of concrete and chrome conceived by international developers with no idea of Queensland’s climate or character.

Have you ever tried walking across King George Square at midday in February?

Not that I am anti-development when it is justified, but it is soul destroying to witness history lost to multimillion-dollar monstrosities.

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Ugly buildings aren’t just bad for the skyline, they are bad for our health.

In his 2018 book Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture, US architect Don Ruggles argues that due to a connection between our brains and aesthetic appreciation, architecture directly impacts our health and well being.

Scott Hutchison of Hutchison Builders is building a new Festival Hall for Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston/News Corp Australia

“Beauty is not ‘in the eye of the beholder’,” Ruggles says, “but a neurological event.”

Humans are programmed to hormonally react to comforting patterns, he claims. So a beautiful building will lower our stress levels, while an aggressive building will upset us.

He even proposes that as our understanding of neuroscience and neuroaesthetics develop, a person could potentially sue the designer of a visually agitating building for giving them a heart attack.

When we lose yet another important structure to a concrete behemoth, we don’t just lose that physical space, we lose the community connection.

We lose a place that holds the tapestry of millions of memories and traditions.

The Shingle Inn is one tradition I will never pass on to my children.

Please, don’t let us lose more.

Lucy Carne is editor of RendezView.com.au

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