City of Sydney Council has confirmed it will preserve and restore a number of brick kilns and chimneys located at Sydney Park with the help of Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects and JMD Design as it looks to maintain connections between the community and landscape.
Built in the 19th century, the structures are remains from the brick making industry that resided in the area at the time. The improvements to the park will sensitively incorporate the park’s industrial past.
“The kilns and chimneys at Sydney Park are culturally important and we want to embed the site’s history into the landscape,” Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore says.
“The City of Sydney is a leader in marrying historical structures and green space, such as at the wonderful Paddington Reservoir Gardens, and we’re ready to create another memorable space at Sydney Park.”
The space where the park resides was a forest of turpentine and ironbark trees where the Gadigal and Wangal peoples would hunt kangaroos. After European settlement, a number of brick, pottery and tile works were established in the area from the early 19th century due to an abundance of brickmaking clay found in the area.
Brickmaking continued on the site until the 1970s and became a rubbish dump until 1976. Soil and building rubble was placed over the brick pits to form Sydney Park a few years later.
Council plans to construct a raised lawn area and new plaza spaces, paved outlines of kilns, rail tracks and brick pits to acknowledge the industrial context of the park, better access to the area from the Princes Highway and the preservation of the kilns through placing roofs above the structures.
Unfortunately, despite external interest, the Council is unable to repurpose the buildings for commercial use due to structural and safety issues.
Image: City of Sydney
