 | RADARINTERIOR Six Degree’s latest bar presents a complex layering of past and present –
manipulating perception, it places history in doubt. Toby Horrocks reports.
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Phoenix Bar in Flinders Street, Melbourne,
by Six Degrees, is a renovation of the
three-storey Phoenix Hotel. The hotel was
built in the 1860s, and its brick facade
dates from the 1920s; but its dominant
style comes from a 1960s refurbishment
that altered the floor levels by inserting an
in situ concrete mezzanine. Rather than
continue the cycle of demolition and
renewal, Six Degrees have treated the run-down
pub as a found object, waiting to be
given a new context and a new reading.
Features from the 1960s – ceilings and
walls sprayed with Vermiculite, which curve
smoothly at their junctions, and a
continuous dado of horizontal hardwood
boards – are juxtaposed with luxurious
tiger and zebra print carpet, patterned
fabric wall panelling, and hardwood posts
with random yellow stripes painted at hip,
shoulder or elbow level.
The major structural change is the
addition of a stair connecting the mezzanine to the upper level. Appearing to
hang delicately from steel rods (a reference
to the stairs of Falling Water, Frank Lloyd
Wright’s famous 1939 Kaufmann
residence), the treads are actually
cantilevered from a steel beam concealed
in the wall behind newly sprayed
Vermiculite. Added to this are elements
from the 1960s that were not part of the
previous fit-out but could have been – a
conversation pit on the ground floor, a
chandelier of textured glass light fittings
familiar from sixties suburban houses, and
so on. The result of this hybrid attitude to
renovation is that the distinction between
old and new is obscured, and history is
tampered with. In this uncertain context
everything is potentially new. Rather than
primarily generating architectural form, Six
Degrees are manipulating perception.
Take the screen. In the context of a wall
dividing two spaces, the industrial remnant
reads as decorative screen. On a stack of scrappy off-cuts in a factory tip it reads
as scrappy off-cut, and requires a
particular eye to imagine its new life.
Some might argue that the tedious
found-object gag is no longer funny. But
this is the least interesting aspect of the
screen. In fact it performs a social role, a
comfort role, dividing yet allowing for
survey. The Phoenix has spaces for being
observed as much as spaces for privacy
– inclusive and low key, with a different
feel at different times for different people.
This is an architecture that treats the
human animal kindly.
If the building had been gutted,
painted white with curvy groovy new form
making, we would analyse the design on
its own terms – is this a good bar, a good
style, do we like it? Instead we are left to
analyse past styles in the context of
current fashion – do we now like the
sixties? Is it old? What does old mean?
An 1832 pub called the Fail Me
Never; 1920s facade; 1960s interior;
2001 interior update with 1970s lights,
sunken lounge and Frank Lloyd Wright stair. A cost-plus contract, a “suck it and
see approach”, materials pulled off the
wall, re-dressed and re-fitted, carpet that
came late in the piece, the chance to
make an artwork. There’s a low glossy
ceiling inspired by Jean Nouvel’s Arab
Institute. There’s an Escher feel to the
stairs and levels.
How did the design evolve? There are
no traditional working drawings, rather a
set of A4 sheets with mostly hand drawn
perspectives and very personal, familiar
annotations.
The nature of architecture, despite
public perceptions to the contrary, has
always been many hands, many authors.
Is this blending of old and new under the
supervision of Six Degrees, this dense
layering, the work of many architects?
This project, unfolding towards us out of
the future, shows us what we have
already seen. The objects and materials
are not new, but the attitude to
architecture is.
Toby Horrocks is a Melbourne-based
architectural graduate and writer.
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Phoenix Hotel
Architect Six Degrees—project architect Mark
Healy. Engineer Robin Bliem. Builder Grant
McKenzie.
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