Arts and culture from stage to cemetery

Over the last few weeks, I've had the chance to soak up plenty of culture at museums, art galleries, some interesting buildings, a book launch, live shows, and even a sculpture exhibition in the Southern Hemisphere's largest cemetery. In the interest of expediency, here's a quick rundown, by category, with some photos to boot.

Architecture

Not surprisingly, knowing a bunch of architects, my travels are peppered with visiting interesting architectural sites. Sometimes, they are well-known buildings, and sometimes they are hidden gems that sit off the beaten path.

While in Queensland, I had the chance to visit two buildings that are very much off the beaten path, both of which were actually designed by my friends.

On the way to the Bunya Mountains, we took a detour to the not-so-small town of Toogoolawah. With a population of just over 1,000 people, it may seem an odd place to have an award-winning public building. But it just so happens that the town is home to the Somerset Regional Art Gallery, located within a century-old condensed milk factory which was once owned by Nestle.

The Condensery.

The building won numerous national and state awards after it opened in 2015, and it was nice to be able to check it out.

On the way back to Brisbane after the weekend in the mountains, we took a different route, allowing us to stop into Jondaryan. About an hour out of Brisbane, we stopped in the town of Gatton to visit a remote University of Queensland campus (the main campus is in Brisbane), and specifically, to check up on a building my friend Ashley had designed many years ago. While the building itself is small, housing a single animal science laboratory, the facade was anything but typical lab building. I've never quite seen brickwork like it before.

While the brickwork is intricate, it actually only uses regular brick, split in different ways.

While on the topic of architecture, it's worth noting that I was in Brisbane for more than just fun. On Tuesday, I delivered a lecture at the UQ architecture school to masters students. The lecture was on the adaptive reuse in the American context, specifically looking at its interplay with mid-century modernism. The lecture went really well, and I enjoyed checking out the UQ campus.

The main building of the UQ quad.

I stayed in Brisbane through Wednesday night so that I could attend a book launch for two new publications out of the UQ architecture faculty. One of the books was co-authored by Ashley, and I knew quite a few others at the event from past conferences.

The full-house for the book launch. 

Live shows

Once back in Sydney, things were slammed during the work week, catching up with things that had happened while I was out of town. The weekend offered a chance to relax a bit, and on Sunday night I popped over to Darlinghurst to see Candice perform comedy at a monthly "storytelling" event she had previously taken me to. It was good to catch up with her beforehand as she had been traveling the last few weeks, and the show was fantastic. I may be a bit biased, but I think she was the best performer of the night.

The comedians from Sunday night.

On Wednesday night, once Zach was back in Sydney for a few days, we went to go see Book of Mormon, which is nearing the end of a six-month residency in Sydney at the Lyric Theatre. A colleague of mine joined us at the nearly sold-out show. I had seen the show a few years back in Atlanta, and had high expectations based upon friends who had seen the Sydney production previously.

Located at Darling Harbour, inside the Star Casino, the venue is about the same size as the Capitol, where I saw Mamma Mia and Priscilla, but is modern. The theatre was great and the show lived up to the hype. Definitely glad I went to see it again.

Sculptures in the cemetery

Definitely the strangest delve into cultural events I had over the last few weeks was this weekend, when I set out to Lidcombe on Saturday to visit Rookwood Necropolis. Rookwood happens to be the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, covering more than 700 acres with more than 1 million burial plots. Founded in 1868, the cemetery is quite a sight to see.

Each year, the cemetery plays host to a sculpture exhibition among the plots. Saturday made for a perfect day for exploring, with the high temperatures (breaking into the mid-30s C; that is low-90s F) eased by strong winds and cloud cover.

One of the three dozen sculptures in the cemetery.

A Victorian-style cemetery, not unlike Oakland in Atlanta or the many grand cemeteries of New Orleans, the older areas of Rookwood are almost park-like, with grand monuments marking many of the graves.

Of interest to me (beyond the art) were the remnants of one of the old train stations which served the cemetery from the city, bearing mourners and the deceased from a specially built terminal next to Central. I know about the long-defunct line as I happen to live next door to the appropriately named Mortuary Station in the city. And while the four stations in the cemetery are long gone, made redundant with the rise of cars, one of them has been excavated, with the foundations revealed.

The exposed foundations of Cemetery Station 1.

So there you have it, an array of things I have gotten up to on the cultural end of the spectrum over the last few weeks. I promise, there is still more to come in the next few days to finish catching everyone up to speed!