Figures 1-3: Own Photography
The St Leonards Centre Crows Nest
“[B]eauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace.”1 On the corner of Clarke and Oxley Streets in Crows Nest, sits one of the most striking – and possibly one of the most forgotten – examples of Brutalism in Sydney. The St Leonards Centre, or what is now known as the Oxley Centre, is located within a kilometer of St Leonards station, on the outskirts of Crows Nest town centre. In recent years, the area has seen a massive boom in multi-storey commercial and residential development that has drastically altered the area. The building, however, sits in an area relatively untouched by the recent expansion of development on the Lower North Shore, and is surrounded by other buildings from its time. To this day, The St Leonards Centre remains as one of the most striking outstanding examples of Brutalism in Sydney; its emphasis on functionality is part of its success as an office and commercial space. As one of the most influential and defining architectural movements of the twentieth century, the New Brutalist movement (or simply ‘Brutalism’) has had a lasting impact upon Sydney. The height of the New Brutalist movement coincided with a massive expansion of the Australian economy that saw Universities playing a larger role in society, as well as an emergence of the service sector as one of the nations largest employers. The movement ‘emerged in a post-war society that saw the need for “social” infrastructure’, and has had a 1 Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom, (Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008), 34.
Jarrod Haynes | 440173788
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