Design Work on the Spire from 1973
My initial involvement with Sir Roy Grounds and the design of the Spire followed on from a meeting with senior engineers from John Connell and Associates (JCA) at a Conference about Tall Buildings at the University of Sydney in 1973. As a result I was engaged to carry out a complete design check on the four large spaceframe roof structures proposed for the Collins Place Project and another four roofs for the Canberra Hospital Services Complex.
The Arts Centre Spire and Meeting Sir Roy Grounds
At the end of being briefed on these two projects, we were in Andrew Goad’s office (JCA) and on the wall behind there was a drawing of a tall tapering lattice tower.
It turned out that this was the state of play for the design of the Spire for the Victorian Arts Centre - later renamed the Melbourne Arts Centre. I had last heard of the spire whilst in High School when pupils were encouraged to save their copper coins for the copper clad spire. Apparently this was more for fund raising rather than the coins being melted down for the copper cladding. The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) had been completed.
John Peyton (JCA) asked, “do you want to have a go at that one?” I answered with a yes and so John contacted the architect Sir Roy Grounds, and he agreed to meet me the next day where he defined the basic criteria to be satisfied. By this time the concept for a copper clad spire "place marker" covering a relatively small theatre built below street level had been abandoned and a tall open tapering lattice spire was the direction to be followed. A separate complex - the Concert Hall - was to be closer to the Yarra River.
A model of the Copper clad Spire above the Theatres essentially planned to be below street level.
Roy Grounds office had made some models which were shown to me. The copper clad concept had been abandoned some time previously. I did not observe any models of the copper spire – only an artist’s fairly abstract drawing on a wall. The early notion was that the theatres would be built below ground and the function of the spire was simply to say to people – "hey there is something interesting here".
However, as the project evolved more arts and theatre companies wanted to be involved and the size of the complex grew – and grew so that, coupled with the appalling soil conditions and water table right next to the Yarra River, it was no longer possible to have a small footprint or for the theatres to be fully underground. From what I understood the original theatre was to be an intimate “theatre in the round” with a small stage jutting out towards the audience seated on three or four levels.
As we stood around the current model of an open lattice spire, Sir Roy explained that he was just about to engage a sculptor to design the lower spire. He was very specific and gave two criteria that he felt needed to be met. The assumption was for a tall tapering lattice structure. In addition, the various components needed to be “man-sized” (he indicated the height of the nearest door) so people could relate to the scale. Secondly the lower skirt as it was called needed to represent a ballerina’s tutu.
That was it – I made a comment that I didn’t think his current model would be able to achieve both those criteria – especially the ballerina’s tutu! This might have taken him aback a bit, but I was later loaded up with a set of architectural drawings to study and we parted. For his part, Sir Roy did not proceed with approaching a sculptor.
The current model at Roy Grounds office when Kneen was introduced. (c) Peter Kneen
Melbourne Arts Centre Spire Design Develops - 50 Years Ago.
In the above image, the size or height of the building underneath the skirt was significantly less than it ended up. However, based on this, an initial design was put forward in circa 1974 and an existing physcical model was altered.
This design used 16 complete hypars to simulate the skirt of a ballerina’s tutu. Very few engineering or structural problems were expected.
Sir Roy Grounds and the model of the 16 Hypar Skirt Design proposed by Kneen. (c 1974)
Unfortunately, as time went by the size of the buildings under the skirt grew and it was decided to utilize 4 complete hypars and 8 large truncated hypars.
Working with John Connell and Associates, the design of the upper spire was initially to be done by JCA. The transition from the lower to the upper spire was also resolved as shown in the hand drawing of September 1977 (Kneen) below. The upper spire has a rather simple but unique geometric form using tetrahedrons - developed by myself just prior to a meeting in Sydney with Roy Grounds.
My 1977 drawing above - done with a pen on a drawing board - has the geometry transition resolved and a revised system of 4 complete hypars and 8 truncated hypars for the lower skirt. (c) Peter Kneen
This computer perspective plot that I did in 1974 shows the concept of using 16 "complete" hypars. The geometry of the upper spire had not been seriously looked at until 1975.
The following images shows my 1974 concept design when the size of the Theatres buildings underneath the skirt was considerably lower and less bulky. The "upper spire" sprung from the four corners of the top of the State Theatre stage tower.
Another set of my images
However, the facilities of the State Theatre and above the auditorium grew in size considerable after this 1974 design to the extent that the (current) building roof would have clashed with this simple elegant design. The approximate size of the two building envelopes can be appreciated.
As a result the final adopted design of the lower spire skirt was detailed in September 1977 and as illustrated below. These are "parallel" perspectives. An enormous amount of research was needed, including load testing of a prototype of one of the truncated hypars at the University of NSW in 1977. The outer perimeter was required to have a "double layer" for structural strength. This double layer could be extra lacing on the ballerina's tutu!
Similar images using more normal perspective views. The actual details of the building under the spire is approximate as the version shown was used as a model in the mid 1970s.
A walk around the adopted design (c) Peter Kneen