Adelaide Festival Centre

In the 1960s, the Adelaide Festival of the Arts started to outgrow the city's existing venues, and there was a push to build a "Festival Hall". The Adelaide Festival Theatre Act 1964 provided for the erection of the Festival Theatre building.[1] The originally proposed site was the Carclew building in North Adelaide, which had been purchased from the Bonython family by the Adelaide City Council for the purposes of building a Festival Hall.[2]

Liberal state Premier Steele Hall lobbied the Federal Government for tax concessions for a public appeal for the Festival Hall, which was initially unsuccessful, until Prime Minister John Gorton offered Hall either tax concessions or A$100,000 . Hall accepted the money.[3] While on a trip to London, Steele Hall visited the Royal Festival Hall on the banks of the River Thames and decided that the banks of the River Torrens was the ideal choice for the site of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts and the cultural heart of the city. During this time, the state government changed hands, but the drive for a new centre continued with fervour. When Don Dunstan became Premier he expanded the idea into a "Festival Centre", incorporating multiple smaller venues.[4]

The Lord Mayor of Adelaide, Robert Porter, supported by Dunstan, launched a public appeal to raise funds to build the Festival Centre and establish Adelaide as a significant city in the art world. The appeal raised its target within a week, and was soon over-subscribed; the surplus was set aside to create a collection of artworks to grace the new building.

The Adelaide City Baths, which had stood on the site since their creation in 1861 and upgraded several times since, including the addition of an Olympic-sized swimming pool in 1940, were demolished in 1969 to make way for the new centre.[5]

360-degree panoramic view of the Southern Plaza of the Festival Theatre Centre in 2007 (foreground demolished since photo).
(From left-to-right, starting SE):
Background: (SE): Government House, The Myer Centre, (S): Parliament House, Dame Roma Mitchell Building (SW): Adelaide railway station/Casino/Hyatt Hotel
Foreground: (SE): Southern Plaza, (S-to-W) City Sign
Background:(W-to-N): Adelaide Festival Centre: The Dunstan Playhouse, The Space Theatre, The outdoor amphitheatre, The Festival Theatre
Foreground:(W-to-N): Southern Plaza
Background:(N-to-NE): The Festival Theatre (northern) Plaza, (NE-to-E): Trees along King William Road
Foreground:(N-to-E): Stairs from Southern Plaza down to Festival Theatre Plaza, and Southern Plaza.

Adelaide Festival Centre, Australia's first multi-purpose arts centre, was built in three parts from April 1970 to 1980.[6] It was designed from the inside out by architect John Morphett.

The main building, the Festival Theatre, was completed in 1973, within its budget of $10 million.[6] On 2 June 1973 the Festival Theatre was officially opened by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at a gala performance of Act Two, Scene 1 of Beethoven's opera Fidelio and Choral Symphony. The construction of the Playhouse (now Dunstan Playhouse), Space Theatre and Amphitheatre followed.

Outdoor sculptures graced the outdoor spaces, including the prominent stainless steel Environmental Sculpture (also known as Tetrahedra), by Bert Flugelman.

South of complex, the Festival Plaza was completed in March 1977, comprising a then-controversial environmental sculpture by West German artist Otto Hajek. The sculpture was conceived as a concrete garden and iconic City Sign. The lego-like forms and colourful paint work across the plaza were designed to conceal an air-conditioning vent at the same time as provide a playful place to congregate. However, Adelaide's citizens never warmed to the idea, the sculpture suffered poor maintenance, and it remained one of Adelaide's most under-utilised public spaces[7] until its demolition in 2018.

The whole Centre was completed for A$21 million . (By comparison, the Sydney Opera House, completed in 1973, cost A$102 million .)[6]

In 2003, the area around Adelaide Festival Centre was redeveloped substantially. The much-maligned Festival Plaza was redesigned, including opening the underground plaza to the sky and building a pedestrian suspension bridge to link the Plaza to the nearby Riverbank Precinct and a few cafés, restaurants and retail outlets.

From 2016 the Festival Plaza has been undergoing a A$90 million redevelopment, as part of the major redevelopment of the Riverbank Precinct, expected to be complete in 2022.[8]

A short branch from the Glenelg tram line to the Festival Centre was opened in October 2018.[9]