Client ::
- Liverpool City Council
Location ::
- Casula, NSW
Completed ::
- 2008
Team ::
- Peter Tonkin, Julie Mackenzie, John Chesterman, Bettina Siegmund, Tamara Frangelli, Elizabeth Muir, Jeremy Hughes, Roger O’Sullivan, Anne Taylor, Trudy Rickard, Karen Horne, Mary-Ellen Hudson. Photography by Brett Boardman.
Awards ::
- 1996 RAIA National Presidents Award for Recycled Buildings 1996 RAIA Merit Award for Recycled Buildings 1996 RAIA National Access Citation Award
Project Description::
The Casula Powerhouse combines a large regional gallery with arts production and performance spaces, within a heritage-listed disused power station on the Georges River. An extensive process of community consultation and workshops has been undertaken to guide the design of the conversion as a multi-use cultural centre for Liverpool City Council. The first two stages, incorporating gallery, studio, office and rehearsal spaces and the theatre shell, were opened in October 1994 and incorporate a range of commissioned public artworks. A small third stage followed in 1998. The major fourth stage, completed in 2008, comprises a fully conditioned regional gallery, art store, workshop, bookshop, office space and a 350-seat theatre. Each stage of work was designed to a very constrained budget and a carefully managed approach to major services upgrading.
The heritage fabric of the building, including remnant equipment, is almost entirely conserved, with new facilities fitted into its exciting, large-scale spaces. The major volume, the Turbine Hall, is a multi-use space for large-scale functions, activities and exhibitions, as well as being the major foyer and orientation space for the building.
The Powerhouse serves a range of professional and community groups in the region as well as accommodating touring productions by professional companies, specially-curated exhibitions and major one-off events, and has achieved an Australia-wide reputation for innovation and excellence.
