20th Century Heights
During the twentieth century the Adelaide’s skyline, once dominated by Gothic style church spires and the General Post Office and Town Hall towers, was transformed. In the interwar years, central Adelaide began evolving from mixed-use housing, manufacturing and trading to a commercially focussed place where the buildings advertised the corporations.
The city and the suburbs became differentiated in both use and form and the city began to rise as ‘skyscrapers’, especially those on North Terrace and King William Street, began to dominate. In 1927 South Australian Governor Sir Tom Bridges recorded his perception of the local effect in a letter to the Lord Mayor of Adelaide published in the Advertiser on 20 December. He stated:
‘The site of Adelaide is so beautiful it should be a kind of dream city, rising out of the plain between the hills and the sea. I believe the skyscrapers are a great help to this’.
In order to become that city, Adelaide’s Central Business District grew upwards with buildings becoming increasingly modern as they reached higher.
From the Architecture Museum, University of South Australia.
