Sydney

St Leonards Park, North Sydney

North Sydney came out of the war with something to build, and what it built was a bandstand. The Music Shell in St Leonards Park, designed by Peddle Thorp and Walker, opened on 13 November 1948 when Clive Evatt, the Minister for Housing, addressed an audience of four thousand people who had come to hear the Sydney Symphony Orchestra play in a public park.

That first season was photographed at night, which was the point: free open-air concerts under the trees, deck chairs and picnic rugs down the slope, prams parked on the grass, an audience applauding into the dark. The violinists rehearsing inside the shell and the crowd sitting out beyond the light belong to the same evenings.

It is a very particular idea of what a suburb owes the people who live in it, and it lasted — the shell was restored in 1993 and is still in use. The park around it has been North Sydney's open ground since the 1860s and holds North Sydney Oval on its southern side, but for one summer at the end of the 1940s the thing worth photographing was a curved white shell and the several thousand people sitting in front of it.

8 works
Family with a wicker pram at night, North Sydney, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Family with a wicker pram at night, North Sydney, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Applauding at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Applauding at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Night audience on the grass, North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Night audience on the grass, North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Orchestra and audience at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Orchestra and audience at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Violinists rehearsing at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Violinists rehearsing at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
North Sydney Music Shell at night, November 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

North Sydney Music Shell at night, November 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Night audience under the trees, North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Night audience under the trees, North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.
Audience at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948 — photograph, from St Leonards Park, circa 1948
photograph·1948·North Sydney

Audience at the North Sydney Music Shell, 1948

North Sydney Music ShellACP Magazines Ltd.