Hyde Park Barracks
Macquarie Street (opposite Queens Square) Sydney
1817-19 Francis Greenway
1990-92 Tonkin Zulaikha Harford (conversion to museum) and
Clive Lucas (restoration)
One of Sydney’s earliest examples of refined architecture, Hyde Park Barracks was built to house transported convicts in a self-contained walled compound in a bid to solve night-time crime. It was miraculously saved from demolition after it had been left to decay for a century.
The three storey main building is the centrepiece of the walled compound, which included a cookhouse, bakery, cells and soldiers’ quarters. Its primary purpose was to house the large working convict population, which, until this project, roamed the streets at night causing street crime.
Each floor has four large rooms divided by staircases, with rows of hammocks attached to wooden rails and upright posts fixed to the floor and roof. Seventy convicts were crammed into each large room and thirty five into the smaller rooms, to bring the total to more than 800 inmates. In 1887, the interior was rebuilt to house the District Law Courts of NSW. Later, it became a project of the Historic Houses Trust, being carefully restored, conserved and converted into a museum in the early 1990s.
The modern interpretation of the museum, which demonstrates a sensitive approach, is well regarded in architectural circles. Modern materials such as glass and steel are used in ways which clearly distinguish the new work from the original fabric. In summer, during the Sydney festival, the grounds are crowded with people who come to the night-time jazz concerts.
Information appearing in this section is reproduced from Sydney Architecture, with the kind permission of the author, Graham Jahn, a well-known Sydney architect and former City of Sydney Councillor. Sydney Architecture, rrp $35.00, is available from all good book stores or from the publisher, Watermark Press, Telephone: 02 9818 5677.
Last Updated: Wednesday 12 December, 2007