The Gunnery Transformation
Heritage Impact Statement
Schedule of Conservation works
Heritage Interpretation Plan
Photographic Archival Recording
DunnHillam Architecture + Urban Designs
Create NSW
Woolloomooloo, NSW
Gadigal Country
It looked like a forbidding fortress, a dark cubist castle clinging to some old disused wharves and, as in much urban myth, fairies, elves, ghouls and witches were attracted to it as a perfect hide-out…It was called the gunnery and it was a squat.[i]
The $19.2 million Gunnery Transformation project is the first major upgrade of the State Heritage Register listed building in Woolloomooloo since the 1990s. The site has been developed into a world-class, multi-platform centre for contemporary art.
The three-storey brick warehouse building was originally built in 1906 by the Fairfax family as a bulk storage facility for the Sydney Morning Herald. It was acquired and adapted in the 1940s by the Royal Australian Navy, becoming the Gunnery Instructional Centre, giving the building its current name.
During the 1970s the building was a prominent artist squat, and since the 1990s has been the home of Artspace, leading non-profit contemporary art organisation.
In 2020, the NSW Government announced funding to revitalise The Gunnery into a state-of-the-art facility with expanded exhibition spaces, increased artist-in-residence studios, greatly improved accessibility and a strong connection to the local neighbourhood and harbour foreshore.
Working with DunnHillam on behalf of Create NSW, GML provided heritage advice to the project team, including preparing a heritage impact statement, Schedule of Conservation Works, a heritage interpretation plan and conducting photographic archival recording.
GML is delighted that Artspace in The Gunnery has re-opened to the public refreshed and revitalised. GML’s long-standing collaboration with DunnHillam on the building has led to an outcome we are very proud of.
Header image: Exterior of Artspace in The Gunnery, featuring new commission by Dennis Golding, Colouring Memoring, 2023. Photo: Katherine Lu
[i] https://tobyzoates.blogspot.com/2016/06/high-noon-at-gunnery.html
The Gunnery Squats, 1986. Source: Facebook
Installation view, Jonathan Jones, untitled (transcriptions of country), Artspace 2023. Photo: Katherine Lu
Installation view, Jonathan Jones, untitled (transcriptions of country), Artspace 2023. Photo: Katherine Lu
