Cage

Inside the workshop and service centre at 17 Smith Street, Chatswood, a heavy metal cage dominates the frame. Its bars are thick and rusted, built for restraint rather than ornament, and they hold their form even as the structure around them deteriorates. Flaking surfaces and filtered light fill the space behind and above the cage, the kind of light that comes through a building coming apart at the edges. The Smith Street site was the mechanical arm of the Sundell Holden dealer network. While the Pacific Highway showroom handled new vehicle sales, the Smith Street workshop handled servicing and repairs. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd held Holden dealer code 610 for Chatswood, NSW, and operated as part of a multi-branch network across Sydney's North Shore. The company was registered with ASIC on 5 January 1967 under the name Sundell Motors Chatswood Pty Ltd, later consolidated with related entities into Sundell Motors Pty Ltd from 3 September 2018. General Motors announced the withdrawal of the Holden brand from Australia and New Zealand on 17 February 2020. The Holden brand ceased trading in Australia on 31 December 2020. Sundell was one of 185 Holden dealers operating across Australia at the time of the withdrawal announcement, and the ACCC intervened in May 2020 after complaints that dealers were being pressured to accept compensation packages on unreasonably short timelines. A Senate inquiry reported in March 2021 found a clear imbalance in bargaining power between Holden and its dealer network. The Smith Street building was demolished around 2021. Willoughby City Council approved development application DA-2017/182 for a five-storey Woolworths development on the site in March 2021, following more than 700 public submissions, most opposing the proposal. The Woolworths Chatswood East supermarket opened on 26 October 2022. This photograph, made in 2015, records the building and its contents before that end. The cage remains the most immediate thing in the frame: solid, purposeful, and entirely out of context.