(C) 1998 Maria Brandl
The old houses of Hobart are a great treasure and are important not only to the state's history but to the heritage of Australia and to anyone interested in Georgian architecture. To live in them today requires additions that the original residents would never have dreamed about. Adding modern kitchens and bathrooms provides unique design problems.
In Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was known up to 1856, the Georgian period of architecture lasted well into what was the Victorian historical period. In Hobart there are many buildings built before 1840 which are still in use over one hundred and sixty years later. Repair and conservation are becoming more and more important issues to house-owners and renovating them appropriately is an ongoing problem.
In July 1997 some tiles fell off the bathroom wall of the house I occupy in the upper Liverpool Street precinct of old Hobart Town. It gave me the opportunity to do some serious thinking about the house and its future.
The house is "Antill" and it sits high above the Hobart Rivulet where it was built about 1832 by James Blackman, a builder who came from Sussex, England. At age 32 he arrived in Hobart on the "Janet Izat" on 12 December 1830 from London with Mrs Lydia Blackman and their three children Isabella Mary, Henry, and Ann.
He chose a triangular block in a position above the Rivulet near to the mills on which he was to depend for his materials and close to the city he was building.
There he built a basic cottage of seven rooms, two of them upstairs. Two chimney complexes must have provided fireplaces for six rooms and maybe the seventh. A drawing by Mary Morton Allport dated around 1851 shows an open verandah at the front. Although both he and Lydia died in 1861 "Antill" remained in the Blackman family until 1922. It was inherited by Ann Blackman Strutt who did not sell it. She lived on until she was almost ninety years of age and died 11 January 1918. Within the year, and just before Armistice Day, “Antill” was sold on 26 October 1918 to Oswald Connor, a thirty-two year old greatgrandson of its builder James Blackman.
Then two and a half years later in 1921 Oswald Rupert Connor sold “Antill” to Ada Isabel Smith, a married woman and her son Horace Clitheroe Smith of Hobart and the property appears to have passed from the Blackman family at this time, after 90 years.
At this time the first substantial changes appear to have been made to the structure of the house. Mrs Smith added a sunroom extension to the front drawing room, and a bedroom, bathroom, toilet and laundry at the rear. The front bedroom was enlarged by removing one chimney complex and dormer windows were added at the front of the house to the two rooms upstairs.
The exterior may have been covered in roughcast at this time and perhaps the pressed tin ceiling in the kitchen also dates from this era.
"Antill" is not a building where great people have lived but, like many Hobart houses, it does have some very early parts and is valuable as a surviving record of a dwelling space used by ordinary people for over 170 years.
So in 1997 the tiles began to fall off the bathroom wall and a hole appeared. The lath and plaster wall construction underneath was fascinating to these late twentieth century eyes but was perhaps not up to supporting modern tiles. The bathroom had been added about 1929. From the style of the tiles and the vanity unit it was clear that an "improvement" had been made in the 1960s.
This is where this story really begins. It became a question of repair or renovate? If renovation what about a conservation plan?
I engaged architects Jacob, Allom & Wade to assist me with this task. Very soon director David Button and I had the whole house under consideration which is the way it should be but the aim was still to mend the hole in the wall.
The architect left the design details of the bathroom to me while he pondered the larger questions. I was faced with the fact that the Georgians only had jerries and hand basins, didn't they? They did not have bathrooms at all. I wanted a bathroom that was modern and functional.
The space concerned is 1800mm x 2600mm and has a slanting roof.
I looked first at the bath. Since Georgians did not have such objects I had to ask myself whether I really needed a bath? When had I last used a bath? When my daughter was a baby, actually, over twenty years ago. So out came the bath. All I needed was space to shower. I recalled a bathroom in Crete that had taken my fancy a few years ago and which was just a room with a shower head on the wall and a marble floor. Its very simple lines appealed to me still.
Next I considered the hand basin. When did the rectangular vanity unit emerge? Quite late as it happens. The Victorian marble wash-stand so familiar to us all was modelled on the rectangular table. It had been preceded in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth by a basin that stood on a stand. That is what I wanted - a square or round small wooden table on which stood a china basin. But how to combine that notion with modern plumbing and sink furniture? I would have to assemble it myself.
The rectangular vanity unit was removed too and I designed a small square (520mm) table with a marble top and tapering legs. I found a prototype in the Allport Museum of Fine Arts in Hobart, a rich source of design ideas for this period of early Hobart. Although it was a hall table it had the proportions I wanted. I had it constructed by cabinet maker Chris St. Hill of Hobart and chose Huon pine - the great and ancient local rain forest timber well used to coping with wet areas.
The basin itself took a long time to find, but I found one that Kohler in the United States makes to sit in a hole in the stand. It looks like a china bowl of old.
Then I asked the marble masons firm of Dobsons in Derwent Park, Tasmania to cut a marble top and bevel the edges. The hand basin stand is 520mm square.
In thinking of the bathroom space I have long thought of it as a ritual place. After all we use the bathroom daily and we repeat the actions we perform there over and over.
Therefore I wanted to evoke libation chambers in old palaces like Knossos, and chose tumbled marble tiles in random sizes for the floor. These have a dusty worn look. The floor is one level throughout, sloping 50mm from one corner diagonally to another at the opposite end of the room. The tiles also have the merit of looking like the old convict - hewn wall outside my house. I ran the tiles up the walls to the depth of a skirting board and capped them. This feature works well and carries the eye from the hallway into the bathroom easily. The wall tiles are a chalky white ceramic and go from floor to ceiling on all four sides.
The floor tiles are very beautiful - they look ancient and not unlike a street in Athens. I have had small designs incised here and there to add to their mystery and suggestion - a cat, a maze, a spiral, fish, a sun, a fleur-de-lis, a star. These reveal themselves slowly as one uses the bathroom.
Above the hand basin is a mirror with bevelled edges and a frame of Huon pine with a profile like a colonial painting. It hides the only cupboard set back into the walls. Chris St Hill made the cupboard from the same warm golden timber and even though it is is hidden most of the time, opening it provides a special moment in this place of hidden delights. The floor tiles are another.
Space was needed for larger toiletry items such as shampoo so I took an old piece of Carrara marble (probably from an old wash-stand as it happens) which I had found at a garage sale and asked Dobson's to cut it into six small rectangles 160mm x 100mm. These were to be lined up one above the other on the wall next to the shower head like Donald Judd boxes.
A shower curtain is pulled across the entire 1800mm width of the room and set in hospital runners from a beam in the ceiling rather than conventional shower curtain rings. It is light as air to handle and 2500 mm high and white, semi-transparent and it blows in the wind. When drawn it keeps dry the area near the handbasin for dressing.
I wanted lots of light and air since a life-time's experience has shown me that this is all a bathroom needs to control dampness and mould so I put a Velux skylight in the ceiling. This winds up and down with an extension rod that is very easy to use. One other window is internal and lets in light from the hallway.
For the handbasin taps I chose a design by Arne Jacobsen called Vola. The tap is very minimalist in shape and completely functional, very easy to use and mixes hot and cold water. It is simply chrome about 60mm (2 1/2") diameter in total. Vola also produce what must be the most practical soap holder ever made - simply a chrome ring jutting horizontally from the wall. The soap sits on top, is always dry and leaves practically no mess because it sits on so little surface.
I placed four huge chrome hooks on the one wall - like rhinoceros horns and the bathroom has no towel rails. These hooks hold towels which are theonly bright colours. Behind the door on the functional wall is a Hansa shower head - flexible, sliding, and a state of the art latest implement. It is alongside the six marble shelves. Enough room exists to bring in a chair for more support if needed.
At night when showering one can look up to the stars - the Moon sometimes or Jupiter at the right time. By day one can see the sky over Hobart.
The real test was taking the first shower. It works. This room works better than any bathroom I have ever been in. And I feel safe - nothing to fall against or to break or slip upon. Later if it is needed I may add a heated towel rail and installed a second power point placed low down for that purpose.
Lighting is from the skylight and from a pendant light above the basin. I also added an extra wall light there for use when making up. Both use spherical opal shades picking up the Georgian use of the circle.
The exercise seems to have resulted in a very functional bathroom that is appropriate to the Georgian basis of the house with neo-classical echoes yet it is very contemporary in aspect.
Architect: David Button of Jacob, Allom & Wade, Castray Esplanade, Hobart,
Tasmania.
Designers: Maria Brandl and John Shepperd of Hot & Cold
Builders & Plumbing: Shepperd Bros, Letitia Street, Hobart, Tasmania
Joinery: Handbasin stand (and mirror) made in Huon pine, cedar and chrome by Chris St. Hill of Wellington Street, Hobart, Tasmania.
Bathroom appointments were obtained from Hot & Cold of New Town, Hobart, Tasmania:
Tapware by Vola and Hansa.
Wall tiles Ascot Mauri White (Italian ceramic)
Floor tiles of tumbled marble, in various sizes
Wall hooks by Kueco
Toilet holder by Philippe Starck Toilet suite Caroma Vintage White
The hand basin is Kohler’s Vessels Conical Bell from Derwent Park Plumbing Supplies, Hobart
Marble for the basin stand was supplied and cut by Dobson's of Derwent Park, Hobart.
Painter: Craig Burnett, Hobart. Paint: Dulux Mould Shield 100% acrylic Baker's White
I am indebted in particular to the following people who were always willing to discuss and argue the conundrum of adding a bathroom to a Georgian house: David Button, Matthew Shepperd, John Shepperd and Chris St. Hill. I am particularly indebted to Matthew and Philip Shepperd for the meticulous care and the thoughtfulness with which they approached and carried out the design and for making the room the aesthetic and functional delight it is.