Aurora Hotel on square demolished in 1983 after fierce fight that fired up vigilance over Adelaide city's built heritage
The Aurora Hotel, corner of Pirie Street and Hindmarsh Square,Adelaide, in 1912 when the licensee was Henry Gepp.
Image by Francis Gabriel, courtesy State Library of South Australia
The loss of the Aurora Hotel, on the north east corner of Pirie Street and Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide, in 1983 was another watershed in heritage conservation in Adelaide city.
In the early 1980s, Adelaide City Council promoted a plan for the redevelop town acres east of Hindmarsh Square. A.W. Baulderstone gained approval to demolish the Aurora Hotel. Because of the building’s history and architecture, the threat of the Aurora being razed set off South Australia’s most strenuous campaign to save a historic building, involving union bans, court injunctions and a month-long picket by an action committee.
The campaign failed. The Aurora was demolished and replaced by an undistinguished commercial tower block. It led directly to the Aurora Heritage Action, a vocal heritage lobby group for the next 11 years.
When the Aurora was proposed for heritage protection in 1982, Adelaide City Council had declined to approve the listing as development plans for the site, which the council had bought, had already started.
The fact that the hotel was not on the five-year-old State Heritage Register disillusioned many people and increased pressure for councils to have their own local registers. The incident politicised heritage and led to closer public scrutiny of the Adelaide City Plan and the council’s links with property developers.
The Aurora had started life as the Black Eagle hotel in 1859. It was built for Benjamin Da Costa. Later the hotel became the Marquis of Queensbury and then, from 1894, the Aurora.
The painter Hans Heysen was a regular visitor to the hotel in the 1900s and his paintings could be seen there. The hotel had a long association with German migrants who were also members of the German Club and Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
