[Music]
(Male narrator):
A lot has happened in the first 6 months of this 3 year restoration.
We’ve come a long way since 2008 when an independent audit revealed the serious issues facing City Hall.
(Ian Prentice):
The nature of the important buildings, certainly in those days, was that they were built to last.
It’s interesting that the problems with City Hall now, which relate to foundations and the like,
were problems that were encountered at the time of construction.
We’ve heard, handed down through the family, the stories about the difficulty of an underground
stream that ran under City Hall and the work they did to try and combat that at the time.
And it’s interesting now that that’s the very problem that’s coming back
and has to be dealt with by the city of Brisbane today.
(Nigel Chamier O.A.M.):
Oh, I think we’d be the laughing stock of the world if we don’t raise enough funds
and don’t have this professionally completed in the time frame we’ve indicated.
You cannot leave this building empty.
You can’t lock it up; this building is Brisbane.
If you look at the two most iconic statements of our city;
they are City Hall and the Story Bridge.
We wouldn’t close down the bridge just because it’s
old; we’d fix it. And we’ve got to fix City Hall.
(Former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman):
When this building is restored to its former glory, it will be totally open to people to come, and to
enjoy, to utilize, and they are gonna be so incredibly proud of it.
So, it’s the people’s place, and it will be the people’s place for all time.
(Male narrator):
In the first 3 months, no time was wasted, with large scale work commencing inside the Main Auditorium.
The grand organ was skillfully and carefully removed by specialists and placed into climate-controlled storage.
The intricate construction of the huge bird’s nest’s scaffold was the massive job captured on our time-lapse camera.
[Music]
This structure has allowed safe access to the walls and dome of the Auditorium.
In April, City Hall celebrated its 80th birthday and
Brisbane residents were invited inside the public tours of the restoration.
Since the birthday celebrations in April, significant progress has been made from top to bottom.
Inside the dome, serious fire, safety and structural issues have been addressed.
(Former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman):
From the time City Hall opened, for about 50 years, there were many, many complaints about bad
acoustics, poor sound quality in here.
What was happening was the tiles up there reflected the sound back down below and created funny effects and dead spots.
In the 70s, they put this material over the tiles, that covered that, to try and improve the quality.
That, then led to an issue though that if the sprinkler system upstairs went on,
the water could be, get trapped in that and bring the whole dome crashing down with a huge weight of water.
So we’re going in there to sort out that fire safety issue, and to, once and for all I hope,
fix the acoustic issue, so people can really enjoy this wonderful organ.
It’s great to see particularly this issue about the run off of the sprinkler system, the fire sprinkler system,
water now has been dealt with, with these great new box gutters and the material we’re standing on.
(Male narrator): And there is hope that the ongoing acoustic problems in the
Main Auditorium will finally have been resolved, once and for all.
(Former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman): Well, there’s heaps of work they’ve been doing on that.
There’s been this detailed computer modelling by the experts and, essentially,
what they’re trying to do is deal with the way that the dome used to work.
You see, it used to reflect all the sound back down.
Ah, there’s still gonna be a level of reflection but essentially the
new dome will be set up so that it will absorb a lot of that sound.
Interestingly, they’re also gonna have these moveable panels or baffles.
So, apparently, they’ll be able to change the actual set up,
depending on whether they’ve got an organ recital or just a general sort of instrumental thing going on.
So, they’ll actually be able to change the sound characteristics of the dome,
depending on what’s going on down below.
(Male narrator): Exploration in the first 6 months of the restoration has led to some interesting discoveries.
[Music]
And none more so than found in the basement.
(Worker): So we’ve got the two beams and it looks like the base of some lifting device,
whether it’s a gantry or a windles or something, we’re not sure yet.
(Male narrator):
From top to bottom, we’re discovering how the City Hall was built and parts of the building that
have been forgotten for over 80 years.
(Worker):
So, it sort of looks like from the findings up there today that, a bit of ink, some ink pads.
(Male narrator):
Structures added to the roof over the years have been demolished due to fire and safety concerns
and leaks that were causing such serious damage.
(Former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman):
Look, this is the roof and what happened over a series of years is they had real problems with having
a water tight seal.
They originally put bitumen down, which would be fine in Europe but in a hot, subtropical city,
of course, it got sticky and gooey, and they had problems there so they laid down some ash
and then that created a reaction when water went through it into the building and started
playing havoc with the concrete, and the bottom line is, the building leaks.
What it does to the concrete is that it gets into the reinforcing steel, it rusts within the concrete and
you get concrete cancers, it’s called, where the rusting mechanism expands the concrete.
Big chunks blow off, the concrete loses strength and, of course, there’s more cracks and fissures and the water
just runs through into the public spaces below.
(Male narrator):
Younger generations now have a chance to experience parts of our heritage that were almost lost.
Additional layers added over the years are being peeled back so that the original structure can be strengthened.
False ceilings and walls are being removed and the original architecture of the
building is coming back to life for future generations to know and enjoy.
An old friend is making its way back to Brisbane and will be joining
City Hall when it reopens in late 2012, the Shingle Inn.
Those too young to remember the original Shingle Inn will soon get a chance
to experience this iconic Brisbane tradition on the ground floor of City Hall.
City Hall has an exciting future ahead but there’s still a long way to go.
So far the restoration has tackled a range of issues but the work has only just begun.
The next phase will involve the work of hundreds of men and women and some very heavy machinery.
In preparation for this work, heritage surfaces are being protected and workers are finding
interesting ways to carefully get heavy machinery in, out and around the building.
Don’t forget to view our regular video updates online.
They’re freely available and will keep you updated and informed about Brisbane
and Queensland’s most important heritage conservation project.
Simply go to the Brisbane City Council website and follow the prompts.