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There are lots of reasons I fell in love with this place when I first discovered it, but my first impression was of the bright yellow color. It is such a sunny and warm little building nestled amongst the bigger brown and grey drab of the business-like buildings all around. It is warm and inviting, it has personality. It is like the little red engine that could - this is the little yellow house that could. It is my little magical refuge from all the grey of the world.
Of course there is the other thing. No feeling artist could help but love the hopes and dreams that Vincent wrapped up in his little yellow house in Arles all those years ago. It was his magical place where he could invent the artist within, safe within a nest the color of sunshine. So to find this place of the sunshine here in my Kings Cross was to find a place that spoke to the deepest levels within my psyche.
This place is a place of special stories. Downstairs is the oldest business in Kings Cross. It first opened its doors in the 1880's just down the road before this building existed. When you look into their shop you see the values of an older world in which the latest electronic products sit side by side with something old and well used. They are like a family to me. They are proud that they have the mad artist upstairs I think. They have stories of other artists they helped over the years, other studios in the garret. Some names that are now famous but were then young and poor dreamers.
The building came into existence in 1923. All the buildings along this side of William Street are no older than this because back then William Street needed to be widened and all the buildings on the south side of the street were demolished to accomodate a wider road. The city fathers paid fore the work by selling off the buildings they owned. This was one of them. It was sold on condition a 3 story commercial building be built. This is it. In the floor I see evidence of machinery that was once used here. I do believe it has been a printery. Another time there was a photographic studio. The walls have the feeling of happy times and many lives that enjoyed the warmth of the winter sun through the big window at the front.
Now it is my turn to make good things in this special yellow house. I hope to always do honor to its memories.
At the southern end of Hyde Park is the War Memorial. It is a very solemn building that perfectly marries art and architecture. Raynor Hoff was the artist. In the center, under a domed ceiling covered in 50,000 stars ( one for every soldier from here who died in World War I ) is a bronze soldier, naked, and dead, who is being carried on a shield and his arms are draped over a sword. Three women facing outwards carry him on their shoulders. There is a circular mezzanine balcony so the visitor can look down onto the sculpture from above. The mezzanine also has the eternal flame.
Set around the round room are semi domed niches with stone from the scene of important battles. I always stop and touch the dark cold stone from the Somme. That was where my grandfather was wounded, and left for dead by the retreating ANZAC's, he was found by German soldiers and nursed back to health in a German hospital. They put a metal plate in his skull, and metal pins in his leg. It was fortunate that it was the Germans who found him because the British hospitals did not have the expertise for such radical reconstruction at the time. This building represents a lot to me.
On the outside Hoff made beautiful bronze bas reliefs of battle scenes. High up around the ouside of the building are giant dark pink granite soldiers, heads hung in respect. In the corners at the highest place there are standing nurses who cared for the wounded.. Around about there are trees planted of the scrubby pines and other trees from Gallipoli and in front, lined with trees from France, there is a reflecting pool.
There is no place more sacred or holy than this in all of Sydney.
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