Conference Paper

Author

Griffin, Robert

Title

The Conservation and Adaptive Re-use of the Sydney Mint

In

Sustaining Heritage: Second International and Thirteenth National Engineering Heritage Conference and NSW Railways Seminar

Imprint

Engineers Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, 2005, pp. 20-23

ISBN/ISSN

085825820X

Url

https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.067700252385195

Abstract

The buildings of the Royal Mint, Sydney have a remarkable history of use and adaptation over almost 200 hundred years. Located in the most important civic precinct of Sydney, they have served as assistant surgeons' residence, military hospital, dispensary and infirmary for the poor, Royal Mint, public service offices, law courts, and museum. With each of these uses, the Mint has played a significant role in the social history of Sydney. The Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (HHT) is the new occupant of these most important buildings. The HHT, a statutory authority within the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts, has recently completed an extensive conservation and redevelopment programme to establish its new head office at the Mint. In giving a new use to the site, the aim of the HHT has been to reveal as much as possible of the surviving structures, while preserving the evidence of their alterations and additions. This approach is intended to emphasize the changing use and adaptation of the Mint buildings, Australia's oldest public offices, over 200 hundred years. In undertaking this project the aim of the HHT has been to realize the best in conservation theory and practice with the best in contemporary architecture.

Related Published resources

isPartOf

• Sustaining Heritage: Second International and Thirteenth National Engineering Heritage Conference and NSW Railways Seminar (Sydney, New South Wales: Engineers Australia, 2005), 268 pp, https://search.informit.org/doi/book/10.3316/informit.085825820X. Details