Main building for the 1887 Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition takes on afterlives until demolished in 1962
A lithograph by F.W. Frank Watkins shows the main building and its two annexes on North Terrace, city, for the 1887 Adelaide International Jubilee Exhibition. Below (from left): An Adelaide city council postcard showing the main exhibition building in colour; the fine arts gallery at the exhibition; the building used for a light show in 1920.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
The £32,000 main building for the 1887 Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition was designed by South Australian architect partners Withall & Wells after a concept by competition winner, young E. A. Scott, articled to Bayer & Withall, was rejected as too expensive.
Originally conceived by government architect E. J. Woods and constructed by W. Rogers, the main building, facing North Terrace, Adelaide city, had a dome 112 feet wide and 192 feet high from the ground to its top. It was built in a formal classical beaux arts style with stucco decorations. Semi-circular headed windows on each floor were separated by pilasters. A lookout tower gave a panoramic view of Adelaide. The three centre doors facing North Terrace, were protected by a portico of four columns. A wide promenade resting on arches surrounded three sides of the building. Two fountains played in front of the building.
While it could seat 6,000 people, during the exhibition the main building was divided into five display courts. The central ground floor housed wine and refreshment bars, and a kitchen and dining room. The western annexe had eight courts, while the eastern annexe bordering Frome Road included a concert hall for 800.The northern annexe in the rear grounds included halls for armaments, flour and milling, machinery and agriculture; a kiosk; and several “trophies’ erected by particular firms. The rear terraces and grounds were laid out by Adelaide Botanic Garden director Dr Richard Schomburgk and forests conservator John Ednie Brown. The whole site was linked by a rail line to Adelaide station.
After the exhibition, the buildings and grounds hosted many shows and events. A dinner for delegates to the Adelaide convention discussing federation of the Australian colonies was in the main hall in 1897. Night shows became the rage from 1900 when Adelaide’s general electricity supply started. Mayoral balls, public meetings and organisational gatherings all used it. Nellie Melba and Clara Butt sang to packed audiences in the main hall.
Annual agricultural shows were in the grounds and annexes until 1925, when the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society moved to Wayville. The South Australian exhibition of products, arts and industries, March to April 1905, by the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures was among regular displays in the building.
In 1889, the whole basement was handed over to the South Australian School of Mines and Industries to meet the rising demand for quality vocational training, later replaced in 1903 by the purpose-built school on the Frome Road corner. From 1910 to 1916, South Australian government education department’s Adelaide School of Art used the building through winters without heating.
In 1919, during the Spanish flu pandemic, the exhibition building became the isolation hospital. It was heavily criticised by medical staff and was replaced by wards at nearby Adelaide Hospital in November 1919, after admitting 588 patients, 68of them dying from the disease. In 1934 to about 1938, Ozone Theatres Ltd opened Adelaide's first outdoor talkie film theatre at the Chinese Gardens in the exhibition grounds that had been transferred to Adelaide University at that time.
In 1949, the state government motor vehicles department, with 100 staff and records of 143,000 vehicles and 147,000 licensed drivers, moved to the exhibition building from Victoria Square. In 1962, the neglected exhibition building was demolished to make way for Adelaide University’s Napier Building, underground carpark and plaza with a reflecting pool (later removed).