Magazine Interior

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/8.0 · 1/5 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Bare concrete walls rise to a plain ceiling inside an empty magazine building. The floor is unfinished concrete. No fittings or equipment remain visible. Light falls evenly across the interior surfaces, revealing the scale and solidity of the space.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

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Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

Magazine Interior at Newington Armory, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Magazine Interior at Newington Armory, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Magazine Interior at Newington Armory, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Magazine Interior
Series: Newington Armory
Catalogue: NAR-013
Process: Giclée
Captured: 11 October 2019
Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1/5 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Silverwater, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Silverwater, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The magazine buildings at Newington Armament Depot and Nature Reserve were not built to impress. They were built to contain. Concrete walls, concrete floors, dimensions calculated around the properties of the materials stored inside and the consequences if something went wrong. This interior, photographed in 2019, shows what remains when a century of operational purpose has been cleared away: the structure itself, nothing more. Newington Armament Depot was established in 1897 on land the NSW Government had resumed in 1882 specifically for explosive storage. The site was chosen to relieve overcrowded facilities at Goat Island and Spectacle Island on Sydney Harbour, its upriver position intended to put distance between the city and the things being stored. Construction of the magazine and associated buildings was completed in 1898 across four contracts totalling £17,793, with John Howie as master builder. Management transferred from the Commonwealth Military Forces to the Royal Australian Navy on 22 July 1921. Through the following decades the depot expanded steadily, then rapidly under wartime pressure. At its operational peak in 1945, the workforce across the Royal Australian Naval Armament Depot Sydney totalled 1,141. The site serviced 5,127 Navy ship dockings during the war, including vessels from the Australian, British, and United States Navies. Armaments stored and processed included gunpowder, explosive shells, cordite, fuses, depth charges, torpedoes, and rockets. The last ammunition operation over the wharf was conducted on 14 December 1999. The Royal Australian Navy vacated the depot that same month, ending 102 years of military use. The site passed to the NSW State Government in January 2000. The building in this photograph records none of that activity directly. What it holds is the architecture of caution: walls built thick, floors laid plain, a space engineered to do its job without variation or ornament. Listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 2011, Newington Armament Depot and Nature Reserve is recognised as unique in NSW as the major naval armament storage and supply depot of its era. This interior is part of what that recognition protects.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Inside one of the magazine buildings at Newington Armament Depot and Nature Reserve, concrete walls and floor record the functional logic of a place designed around the risk of accidental detonation. The depot operated from 1897 until 1999, storing and distributing gunpowder, explosive shells, cordite, torpedoes, and depth charges across 102 years of military use. Every surface, every material choice was shaped by that single constraint. The building now stands empty, its 2019 silence a long way from the wartime peak when 1,141 workers moved armaments through this precinct.

Brett Patman

The series

Newington Armory

2019 · 21 photographs

The Newington Armory operated as a Royal Australian Navy munitions depot from 1897 until decommissioning in 1999. Sandstone and brick magazines line the Parramatta River foreshore, their walls a metre thick in places, engineered to contain the force of an accidental detonation. The site now sits within Sydney Olympic Park, its original stores largely intact, paint peeling from heavy timber doors, river light filtering through narrow vents cut into stone.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.