“You need to make
buildings that are around
for 50 to 100 years”
WORDS hamish mcdonaldSydney and Paris trained Philip Thalis is a founding principal of Sydney’s Hill
Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects, a councillor of the City of Sydney, and
a professor of architectural practice at the University of New South Wales.
As well as winning numerous awards, he led the
group that won the original design competition
for Sydney’s vacated cityside container wharf
area – now dubbed Barangaroo – only to have
the design junked by the NSW Government and
find himself the target of attacks by former prime
minister Paul Keating.A&D: How do you juggle your various roles?PHiliP THAliS: For me architecture and the
city have always been more than a ‘job’ – I have
long juggled practice with university teaching,
research, publication and public comment.
And our practice has always been known for its
independent standpoint, involved as we have
been in so many highly-charged projects. So I
guess that’s why the lord mayor asked me to
join the progressive independents on the City of
Sydney. It’s certainly a demanding combination
of activities – yes it’s hard to juggle at times,
but also very stimulating due to the significant
overlap, and the contrasts, between practice,
politics and university. Certainly I don’t have
time or reason to be bored!A&D: You recently warned that Sydney risked
becoming ‘a throwaway city of junk buildings’ to
be knocked down every 30 years. So are we just
a jerry-built city where nothing of lasting value
is being built?PT: This seems to be quite an acute problem
currently. You must keep in mind that buildings
are one of the main consumers of energy. So
having buildings that are disposable is the least
sustainable thing you can do. You need to make
buildings that will last for at least 50 if not 100
years. Many buildings last way longer than that.
Even the humble terrace house – many of those
are now 150 years old. You need to build for
the long term. What’s particularly concerning
with the examples that I cited: the demolition of
Darling Harbour, the football stadium (SFS), the
Parramatta stadium, The Powerhouse Museum,
Sirius – major pieces of construction that lasted
only 30 years. What it also shows is a government- and these are all government projects –
seemingly hell-bent on shiny new things, rather
than saying that Sydney needs to be a city that
matures over time, that we build with a sense of
permanence, that we build for the public good.
A&D: But is it actually the government, the
public sector that is building, owning and
running these places?PT: What’s clear at Darling Harbour is that –
and that was my first job after university in
the mid-80s – for all its faults, and I’m one
of the fiercest critics of the original scheme
at Darling Harbour, it was actually a public
project. It was designed and built by the NSWGovernment. It had the National Maritime
Museum, the aquarium, the exhibition centre,
the convention centre, a Chinese garden, the
Entertainment Centre next to The Powerhouse
and the parkland in the middle, and it retained
Pyrmont Bridge. All of these things were
public goods. What’s happened now is that the
bottom part of the area has been liquidated
and passed to the developer to profit from,
in order for them to build and run some
reworked facilities over a 30-year period.
What we are seeing is the privatisation of the
city, privatisation by stealth. But these sort of
projects and practices have many problematic
dimensions. Our city parades as a global city
but operates more like a provincial company
town, a city fashioned by deals. Instead of
building genuine public buildings that are in
the public interest, it’s as if some buildings are
simply to subsidise commercial operations.
The Sydney Football Stadium – much the
same thing: A 45,000-seat stadium swapped
for a 45,000-seat stadium. Nobody thought the
old stadium was bad, except that it needed more
toilets and bigger bars. That would have been a
routine renovation; not a complete knockdown
and rebuild.
One of the things shrouded with the new
stadium is how much of the public seating
is being given over to expanded corporate
boxes and sponsors’ whims? Is the SFS deal- Philip Thallis
architecture & design /PeOPle/ jul-sep 201910ADQ3_010_012_Thalis_V2.indd 10 26/7/19 4:49 pm