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. An exposed metal staircase climbs the left wall past a wooden shelving unit with its drawers hanging open. Broken windows punctuate the right wall. Paper and debris scatter across the concrete, lit by ambient light pushing through gaps around the door.
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The main entrance to the Sundell Holden workshop and service centre on Smith Street, Chatswood, is photographed here in 2015. Bold black and white tags cover the central roller door, and the brickwork on both sides is marked from floor to lintel. An exposed metal staircase climbs the left wall past a wooden shelving unit with its drawers hanging open, broken windows punctuate the right wall, and paper and debris scatter across the concrete, lit by ambient light pushing through gaps around the door. The door is shut in a way that suggests not a locked business day but a permanent end. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd was registered with ASIC on 5 January 1967 under the name Sundell Motors Chatswood Pty Ltd (ACN 000 560 770). The company operated as an authorised Holden dealer, assigned dealer code 610 for Chatswood, NSW, and built a multi-branch network across Sydney's North Shore. The Smith Street site functioned as the network's primary workshop and service centre, distinct from the Pacific Highway showroom that was demolished in 1987 when the Zenith Centre was built on that land. By 2015, when this photograph was made, the Smith Street workshop was already disused. The building spent its vacancy as an informal canvas for street art and graffiti before its demolition around 2021. The broader Holden dealer network did not reach its formal end until General Motors announced the withdrawal of the Holden brand from Australia and New Zealand on 17 February 2020. The brand ceased trading on 31 December 2020, leaving 185 dealers to negotiate compensation. The ACCC intervened in May 2020 after receiving complaints that Holden was pressuring dealers to accept packages by an unreasonably short deadline. Total compensation across the network was close to $150 million. Willoughby City Council approved a development application for a five-storey Woolworths complex at 17 Smith Street in March 2021, following a Land and Environment Court challenge by Woolworths. The development received over 700 submissions, the majority opposing. Woolworths Chatswood East opened on 26 October 2022. The building in this photograph no longer exists.
04·FROM THE FIELD NOTES
Bold black and white tags cover the central roller door of the former Sundell Holden workshop on Smith Street.
Brett Patman
The series
Graffiti & Urban Decay
54
photographs
Buildings don't stay empty. Once the owners leave, somebody else arrives. Walls that were blank become a record of who came through and when. Graffiti isn't vandalism on these surfaces , it's the only remaining evidence that anyone cared enough to be here.Urban spaces mid-collapse. The gap between what a building was built for and what it became.
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