RBA staff appointments, travels and studies

Director Roger Beeston, was appointed as a Heritage Advisor to the Melbourne City Council towards the end of last year.

India

Architectural historian, Anthony Hemingway, recently traveled to India as part of a team from AusHeritage – Australia’s international cultural heritage network. The team visited a number of sites, firstly to Santiniketan, north of Calcutta (Kolcatta), to collaborate in the development of a functional brief for identifying critical aspects of a proposed museum for Rabindranath Tagore.

Next, an open forum on heritage issues was held at Loreto College in Calcutta, in conjunction with INTACH. Then a training forum/workshop was held in Kerala with the Institute for Management in Government. The focus of the workshop was on equipping Museum staff to manage major risks to cultural collections.

Later, the AusHeritage team, accompanied by David Holly, Australian Consul-General to southern India, undertook a reconnaissance visit to the Kamaraj memorial house in Virudhunagar (near Trivandrum). K. Kamaraj, 1903 – 1975, was an Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the house is where K. Kamaraj grew up. The purpose of the visit was to investigate the potential for preparing a Conservation Management Plan for the site.

Anthony also gave a presentation at the Madras Christian College at Chennai on the topic – “Conservation Management Plans – Managing Change.” For further information on the trip, visit the AusHeritage website at http://www.ausheritage.org.au.

Summer school

Margaret Nicoll attended a summer school on “The Conservation of Traditional Buildings” held by David Young at Canberra University in January. Site visits included the 1860s London Bridge Homestead at Queenbeyan, the nearby city of Goulburn and 1830s dairy at Duntroon.

A limewashing workshop was held at Cooma Cottage, Yass. The property was bought by Hamiton Hume (of Hume and Hovell fame) in 1839, who proceeded to extend the ‘cottage’ over the next 20 years, including adding his own Palladian style wings and Greek Revival portico.