Outside it is a clean, sunny, Canberra day in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Inside it is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil: the empty coal-fire electricity-generation plant on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.
The powerhouse at Kingston has been out of place for eighty years, a symbol of the difference between towns seared with trade where buildings and industry are thrown up as the first priority wrecking the best positions and an intelligently planned town where work and home are placed to make life more pleasant and fruitful.
When Burley Griffin arrived in 1913, he took on look at the partially complete powerhouse near the bank of the Molonglo and despaired. What was the point of a plan if people were to put up industrial horrors wherever they like. He was set to go back to America in a huff, until he was offered the job to oversee the development of the city.
Despite Griffin’s best efforts one of the best sites in the city was surrendered to industry, which could have easily been placed elsewhere.
The 65-hectare industrial site incongruously abuts the Jerrabomberra wetlands and faces north over the water. One of the best aspects in Canberra is given over to a bus-repair shop, a printery, a government warehouse and electrical maintenance yards. In it sits the powerhouse a great mass of unreinforced concrete. Some of it is used for workshops but the rest is a vast expanse of blackened walls.
Ian Hirst has a dream for it. It wants it to be the centre piece for a national modern cultural centre. It could have a world environment centre and a design centre for graphics and electronics. It could have UN tenants for a South-East Asia centre. Mr Hirst is founder of ………
Clearly, the Kingston site is badly used. The ACT and national Governments recognise that. So do the residents of the medium density developments in Kingston who see an industrial wasteland between themselves and the lake.
Justice Else-Mitchell report on the assets and debts of the ACT in 1990 said, “”The land at Kingston represents a major asset of the ACT Government that is not being used optimally.”
Slowly Burley Griffin’s determination not to have industry on the lake shore is becoming a reality. Later this year Canberrans will get a chance to have their say in what should go there.
ACTION has mostly moved and is happy to move the rest of its operations. ACTEW recognises the powerhouse can be put to better uses. Paul Wright, deputy general manager of services, says 450 people work on the site. He would happily do a land swap to a more suitable industrial site in Hume or Mitchell.
The Australian Government Printing Office is yet to decide what to do. Whatever it does, the rest of the redevelopment can go ahead.
A key figure in the re-development will be Labor MLA David Lamont who chairs the Assembly’s Planning and Infrastructure Committee.
He has an open mind on it at present, subject to three no-noes: no manufacturing; no big government spending; and protection for the immediate shore of the lake. And one big yes: the powerhouse must stay, with no pre-conceptions about what goes in it.
“”It is the last significant tract of the land on the lake available for development,” he said. “”I don’t rule out residential development, but it’s got to be an integrated development.
“”There is a quite strongly held community view, which I support, which says that we don’t despoil the lake foreshore by gaudy or inappropriate development or activity.”
He thought the Lake Tuggeranong development was good and some development on the shores of Ginninderra near the town centre.
“”But the rest should be preserved forever and the only way to do that with any certainty is to get it listed on the heritage register,” he said. “”And I see the same thing for Lake Burley Griffin.”
On the powerhouse, he said it was significant for Canberra. The preservation of these types of buildings was important in retaining a sense of progression and identity. He would not rule out a cultural centre there.
Elsewhere, he would not rule out shops or residences.
“”There’s some marvellous stuff that can be done down there,” he said.
Mr Lamont expected his committee to resume the work of the last Assembly committee on Kingston mid-year, after the Territory Plan had been finalised. By then he expected land-swap arrangements with the Commonwealth would have been worked out. The Commonwealth owns several parcels of land, including some vacant one. Among them are Australia Post, Telecom and Department of Administrative Services sites.
In the meantime head lease would be held by the Department of Urban Services with short-term sub-leases to maximise the use of the vacant land and the buildings that are occupiable.
It was like the Kingston foreshore would be developed in stages.
It was a great opportunity for Canberra and the last sizeable lakeside tract.
“”There fore we have to get it right,” he said. “”The test of this for me not only as a politicians but as a long-term resident of Canberra is that there is an amenity, there is a feeling of Canberra and what Canberra is in a visual and environmental sense.
“”I don’t want to see anything happen which is going to do that over.”
The powerhouse dominates the site. It was built there to be close to water for cooling the turbines of the coal driven generators. A weir was built over the Molonglo at the time the lake was a twinkle in Walter’s eye.
Mr Wright, an electrical supply engineer and long-time Canberra resident, points out that it is very much a purpose-built building and therefore expensive to convert to another use.
The base of the building is solid unreinforced concrete the size of four or five single-storey houses. The unused half has all the ambience of and East London docks warehouse _ pigeon shit all over the floor and a gloomy, lofty ceiling.
It generated its first electricity in 1915. Power from Burrinjuck dam came on line in 1929 and went through transformers at Kingston. The powerhouse continued to generate. It was changed and augmented to steam and diesel. Kingston stopped generating in 1957. The diesel generators stayed on standby. All the generators have been sold or scrapped, though some historic transforming equipment remains as do the old coal hoppers.
Because the powerhouse was built there, it seemed logical to put other industry and the rail head there (to bring in the coal). That is how the site got misused against Burley Griffin’s wishes. He had other non-lake sites for industrial development. Ironically, the powerhouse, the industrial focus of the past, is now seen as the tourist-residential focus for the future.
Mr Hirst sees its potential. He has been working of ideas for the site for 10 years.
“”The building could so easily be turned into the perfect multi-arts activities and entertainment complex,” he said. It could provide theatre and exhibition space. “”We could make a future out of our past,” he said.
If the thing is done well, any historical display in the redeveloped area will show the price of early thoughtlessness and the benefits of intelligent planning.