“Clear functionalism, continuity of poetry and pragmatism, expression of the sky and the ground — Boyd’s version of the Pantheon …. Australian architecture at its best”. Kai Chen deeply appreciates the elegance of Robin Boyd’s design for the Visitor Centre at Tower Hill in southwestern Victoria. Conservation works, now nearing completion, brought the opportunity to really understand how Boyd put buildings together.

The story of the formation of the extraordinary volcanic landscape of the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve — on Country of the Maar peoples — its mismanagement by Europeans, and its restoration by volunteers from the 1950s onwards, are the subject of a separate project page, which includes the story of the Boyd building’s commissioning.

Tower Hill Visitor Centre, before conservation works / photo : Lovell Chen

The Visitor Centre (1971) is pure Mid Century geometry: a circular structure with a conical roof. Nothing is frivolous. Every bit of detail is doing something to take advantage of the view, the light, the connection to the land … it’s a building to be experienced, right from the early Boyd sketches to the final product, the clarity is there. Very little material is used — the elements of the building lock together to hold it up.

Chen comments, “People tend to think that conservation architecture is about like-for-like. But when it comes to Mid Century, you have to understand the architecture, in order to keep the spirit, the spirit of functionalism … You really need to understand it, distill the original and make it even clearer.”

The conservation works focused on issues of compliance, sustainability and amenity. Stakeholder consultation and detailed research were required. One of the highlights was meeting members of the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation and learning from them. The companion Amenity Building, designed by the Public Works Department to compliment Boyd’s Visitor Centre, has been retained and adapted to enable future use by Eastern Maar, the registered Aboriginal Party for Tower Hill.

Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve is a collective passion for many people and communities. It’s reassuring that Boyd’s building remains an elegant, viable locus for visitor experiences of Tower Hill’s natural and cultural values. As project architect Tina Tam says, “It’s a pure concept carried right through to the end”.

More about Tower Hill >

Tower Hill is located on the traditional lands of the Maar peoples.
Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation is the registered Aboriginal Party.