A place of interchange – Sydney

A major new public pavilion and sculptural landmark by Australian artist and architect Chris Fox has been unveiled in the heart of South Eveleigh’s revitalised Village Square in Sydney. The multi-award winning Sydney artist, Founder and Director of Studio Chris Fox creates large-scale public art installations that interrogate the conceptual and material boundaries between art and architecture. Fox is renowned for transforming the historic 1930’s wooden escalators from the heritage-listed Wynyard station into the celebrated artwork Interloop, a major fifty metre installation suspended above the York Street escalators.
For Interchange Pavilion, new commission by Mirvac and South Eveleigh, Fox drew inspiration from the precinct’s rail history combining over 250 metres of stainless steel ground rails, 15 tonnes of robotically moulded glass reinforced concrete and 1400 pieces of router cut hardwood. This unique material palette is supported by a 14 tonne structure made up of over 1650 pieces of digitally fabricated aluminium to create a 350 square-metre public art installation.
The arcing architectural forms of Interchange Pavilion reference the geometry of a railroad switch; the point at which a train can change its course, moving from one trajectory to another. The pavilion is a meeting place where tracks converge, a place of interchange where paths cross. Peeling from the ground plane, geometries arc overhead to create an embracing volume; a point of confluence.
Artist Chris Fox said: “Interchange Pavilion is inspired by the iconic geometries of the meeting point between two train tracks. It began with the rail tracks of the area around Redfern Station, Carriageworks and The Locomotive Workshops, where I noticed the distinctive switch geometry: in particular a point where the rail lines diverge off into many different tracks. The switch became a way to follow all these different stories, routes and paths that have occurred on this site. The artwork is also an opportunity for visitors to reflect on these histories but also to come together before diverging into their own future journeys.”