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The fire confirmed the fears expressed in a timely article published in the Herald the previous Friday and signed by thirty-six teachers at Princes Hill.34 The article pointed out that the building was ideal for a bonfire, with its tinder-dry wooden floorsfloors, its makeshift partitions, its old and defective wiring, its ceiling spaces full of flammable wood and a century of accumulated dust; it only needed the spark. The narrow, maze-like passageways filled filled with lockers and whatnot, the dead-end staircase that did not lead to any external doors but finished finished in the middle of the building, and the lack of external fire-escapes, would make the building a certain death-trap if a fire erupted during school hours. It would be impossible for 500 panicking students to make their escape without serious casualties.
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The need for speed and cost determined the physical character of the building. Off-form, flat slab, unpainted concrete walls were chosen to create a ‘non-school’ atmosphere. Bold tangerine reds, magenta, greens, sunflower sunflower yellows and royal blues, ‘to inspire the imagination of students’, strike the eye. Tinted windows offset the harsh morning sun, and spacious planted courtyards provide refuge.45
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These delays pushed the timetable back to June 1971.54 Thirdly, in July 1971 the Education Department admitted that expenses totalling $19 million were being carried over from the previous financial year.55 Consequently, tenders for Princes Hill could not be called until October 1971.55 Lastly, the Princes Hill project was a new experience for the Public Works Department. For the first time, a school contract was outside its direct architectural control. The Public Works Department was obliged to collaborate with Jackson and Walker: to confirmconfirm, assess and approve designs, and to cost estimations. Furthermore, the designs proffered by the architects were totally foreign to Public Works’ traditional philosophy of school architecture. Meandering buildings, open inter-connecting spaces, courtyards, bold colours juxtaposed on raw grey were anathema to the compartmentalised, cell-like, standard-sized classrooms leading off long corridors that characterised Public Works’ schools. As a result, the plans were received antagonistically, leading to unnecessary delays. There were consultations back and forth, lulls and dead periods while committees chopped and changed, deliberated on submissions and reassessed the plans, until the shock of innovation was absorbed and consensus was reached.57 As an indication of the communication problems between the architects and the Public Works Department, the builders, Swanson Brothers, commenced working on the site on 19 January 1972 without the architects’ having been notified!58
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