By Julie Power
An industrial behemoth with harbourside views, the White Bay Power Station was at risk of demolition or death by neglect, rain and bird poo despite its heritage listing.
Now a $100 million remediation of the former coal-fired power station that kept Sydney’s public transport running until 1984 has won the highest honour, the Judges’ Choice, at the 30th annual National Trust (NSW) Heritage Awards.
The two-year conservation by Placemaking NSW with heritage and conservation architects from Design 5 was hailed as a once-in-a-lifetime conservation project of exceptional historic, technical and social significance.
“Against all the odds and after decades of neglect, these impressive efforts have saved building structures, and internal and external spaces of exceptional historic, aesthetic, technical and social significance that were destined to be lost,” the jury said.
Project leader Robert Gasparini was blown away by the scale and size of White Bay. “This is one of those unique and rare places,” said Gasparini, a heritage architect with Design 5. “This is a power station where we burnt coal in the middle of the city. It was in its own league.”
Inside White Bay Power Station. Credit: Chris Bennett
The team’s goal had been to retain the site, stabilise it, make it structurally sound, remove hazardous materials, and address rust and erosion, so it was safe to walk through while retaining its industrial history and rawness.
Now open to the public for the first time in a century as part of the Biennale of Sydney, White Bay also jointly won the Built Conservation category for a large project.
“After 40 years of it being dormant, it has taken a lot to bring it to the point where it is structurally stable and watertight,” Gasparini said. “It really was a building that had had little attention.”
Visiting the site in March 2022 after record rains, he said he had to “wade through a slurry of watery bird poo wearing full PPE gear, helmets with torches, and masked up”.
He got chills in the confined spaces of the pump room, thinking of the hundreds who worked there at its peak.
The remediation makes it feel like workers have just downed tools and left. A kitchen with bright aqua cupboards was kept as it was. A hand-drawn sign reminds workers, “leave light on in cubicle”.
The awards’ jury chair Matthew Devine, University of Sydney’s acting program director of the master of heritage, said the conservation of a large redundant power station was a remarkable achievement considering that in early 2020 the former premier, then-treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, had said it should be demolished. Perrottet later softened his view.
“This is now a large public asset, and we hope it stays that way,” Devine said.
Placemaking NSW says White Bay Power Station presented an extraordinary opportunity, and it has been zoned for predominantly cultural and community events. Gasparini thinks it would make a good university.
The 19 awards announced on Friday celebrate outstanding practice, and excellence in conservation of Aboriginal, built, natural and cultural heritage ranging from books, events, advocacy, architecture and skills.
The annual Heritage Trades Trail in Bathurst won the President’s Prize. It celebrates rare and lost trades including dry stone walling, blacksmithing, wood spoon carving, and wicker furniture making.
Architects Julie Cracknell and Peter Lonergan of Cracknell & Lonergan were joint winners of the built conservation category for their work restoring Glass House, a home in Castlecrag built by architects Ruth and Bill Lucas in 1957 that is now a family home.
“With its featherweight structure, it floats miraculously about the tree canopy, above the rocks, and above torrents of water making their way down to the iconic harbour shore,” Peter Lonergan wrote in Architecture Australia. A photographer likened it to a magic carpet.
Aileen Sage Architects, with Djinjama, Jean Rice, Noni Boyd and the City of Sydney, won the architecture award for the conversion of the old two-storey colonial post office at 119 Redfern Street to create an Aboriginal knowledge and cultural centre.
The Minister for Heritage, Penny Sharpe, commended the winners, saying “these projects are vital in ensuring our special places and stories are enjoyed for generations to come”.
Other winners included the NSW Parliament Chambers restoration project, Sydney, the restoration of D-class tram No. 117, built in 1899, as well as West Head Lookout.
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