Melbourne Heritage in the News

 Turning our backs on city's heritage... again 

By Marika Dobbin 

The Age 

January 24 2011

Docklands sheds are a vanishing part of Melbourne. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

IN ITS heyday a century ago, cargo shed 19 to 21 at Melbourne's docks was part of a bustling hive of industry that imported and exported goods on the ''Great Circle'' sailing route to England.

While the city became wealthy and strong on the back of its port, the fortunes of the 250-metre long shed have changed dramatically. Today it stands desolate and forgotten among the modern glass towers of what is now called Victoria Harbour, the last early linear wharf shed left intact.

The shed with its cobbled cart platform is an increasingly rare relic of Melbourne's early industrial story - but that will not save it. The building is soon to be demolished for apartments and shops, its bluestone platform has already been dug up and piled high around it.

Shed 19-21. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

Docklands is sterile, windy and lacks character, according to its critics. Yet the precinct's oldest and most historically interesting features have mostly been torn down or renovated beyond recognition.

With the northern side of Docklands and industrial parts of Footscray, West and North Melbourne the next to be developed, heritage advocates are hoping that some of the old biscuit and butter factories, goods stores, rail lines, cargo sheds, stencilled signage and manufacturing plants can be protected.

Like many classic Victorian-era commercial cities, Melbourne grew from its port, where railway lines came right on to the docks, transporting produce like flour and wool between warehouses, mills and shipping buildings around King Street and the inner suburbs, and out into the countryside. Most of the shipping commerce buildings were established on nearby Collins Street, still the city's financial hub.

Shed 19-21 is the last intact shed and is scheduled for demolition. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

Historian and planner at the National Trust, David Moloney, said modern developments like Victoria Harbour had already destroyed much of the industrial architecture and the promised restoration of the remaining Shed 9 and Shed 14 at Central Pier to their early 20th century forms never went ahead.

''They are developing Docklands as though it is a greenfield site with nothing there, not as the earliest and prime heritage place in our city,'' he said. ''They've knocked down some of the most visually interesting buildings in Melbourne so they could turn it into something that looks like a Pattersons Lakes business park in the city.''

Kate Shaw, of the University of Melbourne, said there were very few heritage overlays in the inner industrial-zoned areas and Melbourne risked losing touch with the story that underpins its identity.

The YoungHusband warehouse in Kensington now houses artist studios. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

''The new Docklands doesn't have anything much other than apartments, offices and shops for the upper-middle class,'' she said. ''People don't really know about all the treasures that were here. In places like Lisbon, Barcelona and Berlin they are more aware of the potential to re-use spaces like these in interesting ways, but we haven't had the imagination.''

Dr Shaw, a research fellow in the architecture building and planning faculty, pointed to a retrofit of one of the few buildings to be re-used - Goods Shed 2 - as a poor example of how to treat these buildings.

What was once the longest and grandest rail shed in Victoria, was chopped in half and it's middle section demolished, so the new Collins Street bridge could run through it. One side has been renovated into office space for state developer Vic Urban, with a new glass frontage on to Collins Street, while the other side stands empty and deteriorated.

''VicUrban did such an elaborate refit and subdivision that it could only be used as expensive high-end space,'' Dr Shaw said. ''If it had had just a modest restoration it could be used for small start-up businesses, arts spaces or social housing and inject some soul and life into Docklands.

''Character is not just keeping the building but treating it with respect. It's also about diversity of uses, the best cities mix it up .''

Dr Shaw is pushing for the remaining old buildings, many of them on Crown land, to be given low-cost makeovers and used as creative spaces, similar to the River Studios in West Melbourne that will open this month. The old brick warehouse on the Maribyrnong River is being used as studio workspace for 75 artists, at rents of $50 a week each.

The National Trust is campaigning for heritage studies on the remaining port and dock industry areas before any more is sold off or knocked down.

Click here to access the original article online at The Age