Work Bench at Sundell Holden, a heavy steel I-beam runs the length of the frame at waist height, bolted to concrete block.

01 Sundell HoldenChatswood2015

ISO 1001.3sf/8.024mm

Series · 23 prints

Sundell Holden

Photographed 2015
Frames 23
Camera NIKON D7000
Location Chatswood, NSW
Status Demolished
Specs 4,377 sqm site · Almost an entire block · 7.5 m fall across site
01 ABOUT THIS SERIES

Series story

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

Sundell Holden was the car service centre of Sundell Motors, a Holden dealer at Chatswood in Sydney, in the light industrial area of East Chatswood. Its car repair workshops stood on a site of 4,377 square metres that took up almost an entire block, with a fall of about 7.5 metres from one corner to the other. The service centre was vacant from 2010, when a Woolworths company bought the site, and its buildings were demolished by December 2018.

Sundell Motors Pty Ltd was advertising as direct Holden dealers at Chatswood by April 1959, and in November 1978 it was selling the new Holden Commodore under the name Sundell-Holden. Its showroom stood elsewhere in Chatswood. The East Chatswood site was the service side of the business, where cars were serviced and repaired, and underground petroleum storage tanks from a former use of the site lay beneath it.

Fabcot, a Woolworths company, bought the site in 2010, and Sundell Holden stood empty from that year. Willoughby City Council refused Fabcot's planning proposal for a supermarket and liquor store on the industrial land in May 2012, and refused it again on 23 October 2014 after public exhibition. The state planning department went on to consider a site-specific planning proposal, and in 2016 the local environmental plan was amended to permit a supermarket on the site.

The photographs, made in November 2015 while the building stood empty, show a long workshop hall under steel roof trusses and translucent roof sheeting, a spray booth and a sealed car park, with graffiti across the walls. Consent to demolish the existing structures and remediate the site was granted on 21 June 2016, and by December 2018 all the buildings had been demolished and the site was vacant.

Willoughby City Council (21 May 2012), Willoughby Local Planning Panel (11 December 2018), The Australian Jewish Times (17 April 1959) and The Australian Jewish Times (23 November 1978)

02 TIMELINE

Chronology

2010
2012
2014
2016
2016
2018
03 PRINTS

Prints in this series

Hand-signed and numbered, printed from the original RAW file. Open editions in the two smallest sizes; limited editions of 100, 50 and 25 in the three larger, never reissued once they sell through.

Work Bench at Sundell Holden, a heavy steel I-beam runs the length of the frame at waist height, bolted to concrete block.
Work Bench
Green weeds push through cracks in dark asphalt, their colour sharp against the dry grass and fractured bitumen at Sundell Holden.
Weeds
Layered street art and graffiti cover multiple wall surfaces inside the disused Smith Street workshop at Sundell Holden. A blown-out light source overhead floods the centre of the frame with white glare.
Showroom
Showers at Sundell Holden, broken tiles line the floor of a narrow corridor between shower cubicles.
Showers
Server Room at Sundell Holden, cabinet doors hang open against exposed brick.
Server Room
Office Stairs at Sundell Holden, a red fire extinguisher sits at the base of a narrow staircase.
Office Stairs
The mezzanine level of the former workshop, with red carpet running beneath a dismantled timber frame structure at Sundell Holden. Dense layers of tags cover the walls, and a large red mural spreads across the far wall.
Mezzanine
Empty metal shelving runs the length of the left wall of a narrow corridor at Sundell Holden. Black and purple graffiti covers the right-hand wall and the door at the far end.
Hallway
A small enclosed room inside the abandoned workshop, used as the customer waiting area at Sundell Holden. Broken glass litters the carpet beneath a shattered window.
Consultation Room
An empty asphalt car park runs up to the street-facing wall of the former Sundell Holden workshop on Smith Street. Faded parking bay lines remain visible across the surface, and weeds push through the cracks.
Car Park
A wire mesh cage partition divides an upstairs storage room in the former workshop at Sundell Holden. A red horned figure covers the back wall with the word devil sprayed above it.
Cage
Feathery grass plumes crowd the base of a corrugated metal wall, pressing against layers of spray paint in red, white, blue, and black at Sundell Holden.
Bunny Tails
A grease gun and its hose reel lie on the grimy floor of the former service centre at Sundell Holden. Rust covers most of the barrel. The nozzle is crusted with dried grease and grime.
Grease Gun
Roller Door at Sundell Holden, a side entrance to the panel shop which has been turned into a canvas for graffiti artists.
Roller Door
Bold black and white tags cover the central roller door of the former Sundell Holden workshop on Smith Street, and the brickwork on both sides is marked from floor to lintel.
Main Entrance
Body Shop at Sundell Holden, area where all the panel beating/replacement took place.
Body Shop
A Frames at Sundell Holden, exposed roof trusses and skylights running the length of the former workshop above graffiti-covered walls and a red metal staircase.
A Frames
Pale light pushes through a gap in the corrugated iron roof and lands on dusty timber floorboards at Sundell Holden.
Attic
A metal staircase with a yellow handrail climbs toward a small attic storage opening, its uprights dense with red spray paint at Sundell Holden.
Attic Entrance
Filing Cabinet at Sundell Holden, moved to the middle of the paint shop as a bench from graffiti artists to work from.
Filing Cabinet
Spray Booth at Sundell Holden, shot from inside a Lowbake oven spray booth, viewing out into the paint shop.
Spray Booth
A three-tiered wooden shelving unit stands on the concrete floor of the workshop at Sundell Holden. Dried paint has built up along the edges of each shelf in layers thick enough to form drips down the shelf faces.
Trolley
Paint Shop at Sundell Holden, part of the operation where vehicles would have been prepared for respraying.
Paint Shop
04 ABOUT THE PRINTS

How they’re made

Made to order by Brett in Sydney, from the original RAW file. Each print is hand-signed and numbered before it ships.

Paper

Ilford Galerie cotton rag, 310 gsm. Acrylic on metallic gloss, 260 gsm.

Editions

Open in XS and S. Limited in M (100), L (50), XL (25). From $100.

Print tiers →

Lead time

Unframed: 5 to 10 business days. Framed and acrylic: 10 to 20.

05 BACKGROUND

Notes on the site

Letters for and against

About 940 submissions reached Willoughby City Council when the supermarket proposal for the site was exhibited in 2014. Of the 752 objecting, 109 were individual letters and 643 were signed pro forma letters; 135 individual submissions supported it. More than 150 pro forma letters of support came through the Woolworths website, and a petition organised by Woolworths, with about 3,500 signatures for a supermarket at East Chatswood, was received on 24 September 2014.

Source 2

06 REFERENCES

Sources and further reading

  1. 01
    Planning Proposal No. 2011/02 (Cultural and Environmental Committee, item 9.3)Willoughby City Council (NSW Planning Portal) · 2012apps.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/DocMgmt/v1/PublicDocuments/DATA-WORKATTACH-FILE%20PEC-DPE-EP-WORK%20PP-2020-115!20200912T075014.816%20GMT
    T1
  2. 02
    Report on Development Application DA-2017/182Willoughby Local Planning Panel, Willoughby City Council · 2018willoughby.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/public/v/2/ecm/willoughby-council-website/meeting-documents-agendas-and-minutes-meeting-reports-statements-of-determinations-registers/meeting-documents-agendas-and-minutes-meeting-reports-statements-of-determinations-registers/17-smith-street-chatswood-report-2017182c.pdf
    T1
  3. 03
    AdvertisingThe Australian Jewish Times (Sydney), p. 10 (Trove, National Library of Australia) · 1959nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263070200
    T1
  4. 04
    AdvertisingThe Australian Jewish Times (Sydney), p. 16 (Trove, National Library of Australia) · 1978nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263235595
    T1
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