Woolloomooloo Mural Project

Woolloomooloo is one of Australia’s oldest suburbs. Its history is rich and colourful, but by the late 1960s it was almost in derelict condition due to neglect and decay.

A glance at Woolloomooloo today doesn’t show the conflicts that went into its remaking. It’s no accident it isn’t filled with corporate high-rise or middle-class inner-city development.

In the early 1970s the Askin Government approved a program to clear the slums and make way for a grandiose expansion of the city. The State Planning Authority in 1969 imagined high-rise office blocks serving a workforce of more than 90,000, but it didn’t consider transport infrastructure.

Despite the plan’s clear shortcomings, Woolloomooloo became a dream for NSW premier Robert Askin’s developer friends such as Sig Londish and Sir Paul Strasser. Londish was backed by banks including the Moscow Narodny Bank and he considered Woolloomooloo a “hot little basin” unsuitable for housing, according to Meredith and Verity Burgmann in their book Green Bans, Red Union: The saving of a city.

By 1976, 40% of the houses that were there 10 years before had been demolished, half of the remaining houses were empty, and the population was down to a fraction of its former levels. Facing eviction, the residents rallied and refused to be moved.

The Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group was formed in October 1972 to oppose commercial development and organise action to support a drive for Housing Commission accommodation. In one week, the group collected 1,500 signatures to support its campaign.

The core group of 13 included president John Mulvenna, vice-president Gerry Leonard and secretary Nellie Leonard. Some were born in Woolloomooloo and most members were tenants, pensioners and city-based workers, including local activist parish priest Father Edmund Campion.

In 1973 a more informal splinter group was formed, named Residents of Woolloomooloo. While the Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group’s main area of concern was public housing, the Residents of Woolloomooloo aimed to oppose the eastern distributor roadway and create a public park under the eastern suburbs railway viaduct.

With a core group of 5, the Residents of Woolloomooloo generally represented younger newcomers to the area. Its main spokespersons were Honora Wilkinson, Australian Associated Pres community development officer Brenda Humble, and Choice magazine’s consumer advocate Ken Lovett.

The Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association was the first union to respond to the call for assistance from residents. It was shortly followed by the NSW Builders’ Labourers’ Federation’s Black Bans, soon to be renamed Green Bans. The bans effectively stopped all further demolition and development in the suburb.

It was with active union support that the voice of residents gained the power to change federal, local and eventually state government plans. In 1973 a federal, state and local government committee was formed to plan future Woolloomooloo development. This was at the behest of federal minister for urban and regional development Tom Uren and City of Sydney alderman Andrew Briger.

The appointment of Colin James as residents’ advocate ensured a process of consultation where the voice of residents was built into following agreements.

In late 1974 the Labor federal government agreed to donate $17 million for the purchase of private land and granted commonwealth owned land for the residential redevelopment of Woolloomooloo. Green Bans were lifted and in 1976 the NSW Housing Commission began work on the Woolloomooloo redevelopment project.

This marked a unique episode in the history of public housing in Australia. Led by John Devenish, the redevelopment project team’s collaboration with architects received many design awards and international acclaim for effective community consultation and design excellence in public housing.

After our work on the Garibaldi mural in Darlinghurst in late 1979, we approached public housing advocate Colin James and the Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group with a proposal for a series of murals on the pylons of the eastern suburbs railway viaduct.

After many discussions, it was agreed at least half of the murals in the Housing Commission area should show the community’s history and its recent housing struggles to provide an active link with people’s memories. We worked with the resident action group to enlist the support of many groups and individuals to raise funds and provide workspace for the project.

These included:

• NSW Premier’s Department’s division of cultural activities
• Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
• Australian Conservation Foundation
• Trade unions, including Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA) and former officials of the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (BLF).

Funds also came from a residents’ fundraising dinner, the State Bank and private donors. The Housing Commission provided studio space in a warehouse on the corner of Forbes and Harmer streets for the project.

In 1980 we interviewed Tom Uren and leading players in the residents’ campaign to establish the Housing Commission development. After 12 months of research, painting on the history panels got started in early 1981.

As an oral history remade in images, the murals translate photomontage into painting, using a ide range of textual and visual sources – snapshots and personal photo albums, newspaper photo archives, film still, cartoons and drawings.

This social documentary approach involved an imaginative association of portraits, scenes and events under 8 thematic headings from Wallamullah – Place of Plenty to the History of the Waterfront and Victoria Street. BLF Green Bans and FEDFA Green Bans were directly sponsored by the unions involved.

The pictorial organisation of portraits, incidents and local details construct a collective history from the multiple narratives and fragments of people’s memories. By sharing a common heritage and bringing to life a local history of social activism instead of a nostalgic view of community, the murals also complement the architectural conservation, restoration and reconstruction of terrace housing in the Housing Commission neighbourhood.

The murals were painted onto Zincalume panels, pock-riveted to steel frames and bolted onto the pylon faces. Berger Vogue paint was used over an undercoat of Berger Galvaprime which was then sealed with Hydron 300.

At the time, we considered this work as public art, distinct from community arts practice that involves the community in the design or painting process. The initial design process of composing in vertical formats was followed by the challenge of painting the panels horizontally in the studio. After they were installed on the railway pylons, the Woolloomooloo murals were officially unveiled on 10 July 1982.

The murals honour the people whose strong determination and stubborn resilience led to government actions that made their history of national significance. Residents, who consider the murals their own, want them to stay on the viaduct pylons and kept in good condition. From 2009 to 2013 and in 2024, the City of Sydney carried out extensive conservation work on the history murals.

The Woolloomooloo Mural Project was supported by:

• Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group
• Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
• NSW Premier’s Department’s division of cultural activities
• City of Sydney
• Australian Conservation Foundation
• Federated Engine Drivers and Fireman’s Association
• Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (former NSW Branch)
• NSW Housing Commission
• Berger Paints
• Collie & Co
• State Bank
• State Rail Authority
• Graham Day Doors

Thanks to:

• Colin James
• Nellie Leonard
• Gerry Leonard
• Brenda Humble
• Honora Wilkinson
• Tony Reeves
• Andrew Briger
• Faith Wieland
• Pat Fiske
• Meredith Burgmann
• Ralph Sawyer
• Nick David
• Stan Leonard
• Tony Jefferies
• Aquarius Youth Services
• Inner City Legal Centre
• Bird Protective Coatings
• John Storey
• Diane Moon

• Brenda Humble. Woolloomooloo (Save the ‘Loo Now), printed and compiled by B Humble, Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development, Sydney
• George Farwell & Jean Johnson (illus.). Requiem for Woolloomooloo, Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971
• Colin James. Advocacy Planning in Woolloomooloo. A record of close-range planning activity in Woolloomooloo from May 1974 to December 1976
• Tom Nelson. The Hungry Mile, Sydney, Waterside Workers Federation of Australia, Green Bans 1972
• Isadore Brodsky. Sydney’s Little World of Woolloomooloo, Old Sydney Free Press, 1966
• Richard J. Roddewig. Green Bans: The Birth of Australian Environmental Politics, published with the Conservation Foundation (Washington) Hale & Ironmonger 1978
• Meredith & Verity Burgmann. Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the NSW Builders Federation, UNSW Press 1998
• Honora Wilkinson. Watch on the ‘Loo, 1920–1980, Sydney: Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development CoOp Ltd, 1983
• Cathy Sport. ‘Save Our Homes, Activist Documentaries 1970–1985’, Metro 136: Autumn 2003, pages 138–147
• Robyn Heks. Mural Painting in Australia, Art Network #5, Sydney 1982
• David Humphries & Rodney Monk. The Mural Manual, Sydney 1983Terence Maloon. ‘What Murals will do for Sydney’, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 1983
• Terence Maloon. ‘Woolloomooloo This is your life, on billboards’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1982
• Bernice Murphy. Australian Perspecta catalogue AGNSW Sydney 1983
• Susan Orr. ‘Woolloomooloo to record the battle and the battlers‘, Sydney Morning Herald, March 1981
• Neville Weston. In the Public Eye: Public Art in Australia, Melbourne 1983
• Michael Bogle. Historical and Condition Survey of the Woolloomooloo Mural Project, report prepared for the City of Sydney, June 2008
• Pat Fiske & Denise White. Woolloomooloo: redevelopment 1969–1977, Australian Film Commission