Guy Maron's design an attempt in 2021 to push moves for long-awaited concert hall to present fine music in Adelaide
Guy Maron's conept for an Adelaide concert hall floating over the River Torrens riverbank, with the entrance from the Festival Plaza. Insets: Guy Maron and his idea for the 1,500-seat interior.
Images courtesy Guy Maron
Architect Guy Maron added momentum to the long-discussed possibility of Adelaide having a concert hall by putting forward another design for it in 2021.
Maron called his proposed concert hall concept “The UNESCO Centre of Music” highlighting, as he told Solstice Media’s InReview, that despite Adelaide being Australia’s only UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) city of music, it remained the nation’s only capital city without a concert hall.
Maron’s vision for an Adelaide concert hall, between the Festival Theatre and the Dunstan Playhouse, was for it to become a hub for education and a home to Adelaide Symphony Orchestra as the anchor tenant, with others such as the Adelaide Youth Orchestra, the Adelaide Chamber Singers, Young Adelaide Voices, the Artaria ensemble, the Australian String Quartet, the Seraphim Trio and Adelaide Baroque, also using it as a base.
The 2021 concert hall design was the second by Maron, whose over work more than 50 years of practice included the Bicentennial Conservatory in the Adelaide Botanic Garden and the original City West campus of University of South Australia on North Terrace, Adelaide city.
Maron wasn’t commissioned to produce the concert hall designs. It was another chapter in his long involvement with South Australia’s quest for a concert hall. Maron was first brought in by Liberal state government arts minister Diana Laidlaw to consult on a feasibility study in the 1990s. That process was scrapped, due to a lack of funds.
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra had no permanent performance home, instead using the Adelaide Town Hall and the Festival Theatre as options. The town hall had good acoustics but it suffered from poor backstage areas and limited seating.
A draft scoping report on the need and benefits of an acoustic concert hall in Adelaide was handed to the South Australian government and key arts groups in 2021. The report, commissioned by the state government in 2020, was prepared by local architecture firm Baukultur.
