By Goya Dmytryshchak
The heritage-listed Spotswood Pumping Station is among a dozen buildings across Hobsons Bay and Maribyrnong that will welcome the public for the 11th annual Open House Melbourne weekend.
Built by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works in 1897, the pumping station’s grand architecture is strangely at odds with its former purpose of handling all of Melbourne’s human waste.
The station ceased operation in 1965 and has since been sought out by filmmakers and tourists.
The Australian Islamic Centre at Newport will also open its doors.
Designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Glenn Murcutt in collaboration with local architect Hakan Elevli, Australia’s first contemporary mosque has attracted international acclaim and is destined for World Heritage listing.
Other buildings open this weekend include:
• Yarraville’s Sun Theatre, built in 1938.
• Modscape, a Brooklyn factory where modular homes are built.
• The Dream Factory in Footscray, a co-working space.
• Jack’s Magazine, a former explosives store on the banks of the Maribyrnong River.
• The Drill Hall, Footscray, where the Women’s Circus trains.
• Stealth House, an aeronautical extension to the rear of a post-war weatherboard home in West Footscray.
• The Substation, Newport.
• Melbourne Vernacular, Yarraville, an example of an environmentally-sustainable house.
• Ercildoune, Footscray’s first custom-built bank and now home to the Footscray Historical Society.
• Footscray Town Hall, the only known example of the American Romanesque style applied to a civic building in Victoria.
View all the Open House Melbourne tours at openhousemelbourne.org/melbourne/
