The auditorium at dusk in May 2019 under large gum trees: the new glazed foyer lit gold inside its black frame at left, and at right a sloping board-marked concrete prism under the metal roof.

Sir John Clancy Auditorium

University Walk, University of NSW, Kensington

Fowell, Mansfield, Jarvis & Maclurcan; foyer by Lahz Nimmo Architects. Opened 1971, new foyer 2019. Brutalism.

Size
945 seats. About 50 m across, from OpenStreetMap. No height found; the drawing is estimated
Material
Off-form concrete in prismatic forms, since painted, metal roof. Foyer of 2019 in glass and copper shingles
Status
No heritage listing found. University of New South Wales auditorium

The auditorium was built in the late 1960s and opened in 1971, with a single hall for both teaching and events. It is named after Sir John Clancy, a former Chancellor of the university. At 945 seats it is described as the largest public auditorium in the eastern suburbs, and it is where the university holds its graduations. A tapestry by Mona Hessing, 21 metres long, has hung in the foyer since 1971.

The hall is a prism of off-form concrete, its board marks scored into the surface, with smoother finishes inside. Harper credits the design to Fowell, Mansfield, Jarvis & Maclurcan, and a survey of the architectural press names M. S. Holmwood and O. R. Jarvis as designing architects. The same firm’s larger Sciences Building of 1974 was placed to frame the auditorium within an elevated plaza.

Harper recorded the exterior concrete as painted by 2016. In 2019 Lahz Nimmo Architects enlarged the original foyers, which faced north, east and west, as part of a new arrival point for the campus beside the light rail. The new foyer is a glazed box under a canopy lined with gold-coloured copper shingles, and the off-form concrete of the inside walls was revitalised. The work received an award for educational architecture in the 2020 NSW Architecture Awards.

Read about Brutalism in Sydney

Sources

  1. Clancy Auditorium foyer refurbishment, UNSW Estate Management
  2. UNSW shines with refurbished Clancy Auditorium foyer (20 November 2019), UNSW Sydney
  3. UNSW Venues, Wikipedia
  4. Review of architecture media 1955-1987 (Bogle, 2013), Brutalist Concrete NSW
  5. The Brutalist Project Sydney (Harper, 2016), inventory item I8, NSW Architects Registration Board