Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

ARCHITECT Robin Gibson points to one of the little trumpeters' balconies which flank and overlook the stage of the concert hall in the bur– geoning Performing Arts Centre. Brissy, ~•1 think that will be my favorite seat," he says. "I'll sit there like one of those two old blokes in the Mup– pcts, looking down and grumbling at the players." It's refreshing to know that R. Gibson, Queenslan– dcr of the year for 1982, winner of the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Australia's most outstanding build– ing of the year for his magnificent Queensland Art Gallery, is not too toffynoscd to watch the Muppcts, but then he's the sort of bloke who'd love to sec the Muppcts play in the new Performing Arts Centre, as long as it got kids into the comRlex. Because Robin Gibson has not designed the centre as merely a You beaut edifice, but as a place to get bot– toms on seats and feet padding through the walkwavs. you will be Robin had invited me to sec the Performing Arts Centre at the same stage as he invited me to see the Queensland Art Gallery - when the structural work was complete and be– fore t~ had started to tnrt the place up.... l 'want you," Ire had said, ''to see the place in the raw." · Raw it is, but anyone can sec that the Oabnnd Ahs and sighs of wonder 1 • ivtiicl1· greeted the opening of the Art Gallery are going to be redoubled when the public gets to sec the com– pleted Performing Arts Centre, prob– ably early in 1985. RobL1 Gibson and Sir David Muir, chairman or the Queensland Cultural Centre Trust, are waiting near the pedestrian walkway which leads from the Art Gallery to the Performing Arts Centre. They exhibit all the well• controlled urbanity of a couple of'kids ready to show off their new model choo-choo. I· i i i I Sir David searches for superlatives to try to convey the atmosphere when the place is finished. "Down there, in that sort of plaza area on the Per– forming Arts side. you won't even know that Melbourne Street separates you from the Art Gallery. You'll be able to sec the Art Gallery, but not the traffic. "Down here there will be a bistro and an arcade with six shops. People will be able to walk through the cen– tre to South Brisbane railway sta• tion." As they do, Sir David (l(lints out, they will be able to look through large windows at the theatre and conccri– gocrs all dolled up in their glad rags. The idea, he hastens to add, is not to make them envious - the poor press– ing their noses against the glass to sec the rich inside - but to encourage them to come themselves to a future performance. Robin Gibson has an artist's de• scription of the area in one of the main foyers on the Melbourne Street side. "This is the spider's web," he says, "where we catch them all. Then they can go all over the complex." We enter one of the grand foyers and Gibson says will you look at some of those vistas, just look at them, and you look at them and wonder arc they really building this place for dear lit– tle old Brissy, the country town that has just growed up? staggered Look out one window and you see Art Gallery and bridge and city and Treasury and river. Look out another window and you wonder who put that hump in Queen Street. Inside the centre, all is organised confusion. Planks, cables. scaffolding, litter the noor, ankle-deep dust clings to your trouser cuffs and little; puddles abound. But even amid the seeming·chaos, the magnificent soaring spaces of the foyers and side stairways arc evident. Says Robin Gibson: "It's not just a foyer. It's a spatial experience.' We look from the main foyer down towards a small platform. "Look down there," says Sir David. "Robin has dcsi~ned it so you can have cham– ber music down there. Waiting to go to the theatre, artists there to enter• tain you. "And at lunchtime, imagine people standing here, watching a free per• formancc. We want to keep ~very seg- Lyric Theatre. It has I000 seats in the main auditorium, SOO in cacti of two circles. At the press of a button, a curtain wall cuts off the back section of each of the circles, if necessary. The cur– tain leaves the front row of the circle on view, so that patrons can be seated there. The curtains cut the audience to I000, or I SOO as necessary. The idea is that actors like nothing so much as a full house, and having the people right up to the back row, it gives them a warm friendly glow. lllu– sion, after all, is the stuff of theatre. In cold print, it looks like bombast, but Gibson is saying nothing more than what he believes to be the truth when he remarks: "I think this the– atre is going to be the big success of the theatre world. Not just in Austra– lia. I don't have a doubt in my mind about that." He goes on to say that the walls will be covered with elegant timbers, and 'I think this theatre will be the big success of the theatre world' ment of the centre alive, day and night." Gibson gets somewhat carried away as he speaks of his new baby. He waves an arm, encompassing the foyers and the stairways. "Imagine the splendor of the place when it is all completed. Bars every– where, big tapestries on the wall, the wonderful movement patterns of F,· pie and the whole place a kaleido– scope of color. It ls going to be sheer excitement." As you stand in the central area, the two rr,ain halls are on either side, the Lyric Theatre on the left, the con• cert hall on the right. Each seats 2000 people. Gibson says: "Come and we will take you to the gods," and in a few steps we arc in the top circle of the metal wall-hangings will come part way down the walls, almost like old theatre curtains. When the lights go down, says Ro• bin, all the action is on stage. When the light go up, the theatre comes alive. Entrance apertures into the theatre mean you arc never more than three rows away from your seat. If you come out on the river side, you sec these grand sweeping stair– cases, and a superb view across and down the river. Robin Gibson merely asks a question: "Where else in the world?" Over in the concert hall, Sir David says: "Sec the different effect? " Indeed. The hall is narrower and consists of an auditorium. There are no circles, although there arc tho~i: \ ,