Footnotes To A Carpark, 2024 - Dalton Stewart

How many ways can we act on the calls of our city?


The calls come as whispers, moments from the past that emerge and intersect with the present.

They manifest as rhythms, routines, rituals, and movements within the city.

The calls come loudly as shouts of protest, rage, and demands for change.

We must also listen to silence and absences, or rather, learn to read presence in places we've been
conditioned to overlook.

Architecture is a practice of looking and listening, of overlaying time, stories, excerpts, atmospheres,
archaeologies, adaptations, forms, materials, systems and processes.

Rereading, Footnotes Of A Car Park engages with the layered history and architecture of the Brutalist
Cardigan House, constructed in 1974 to a design by noted architects Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell.
Amidst conflicting ideologies, the building has been at risk of demolition, sparking public debate over its
heritage significance, conservation and its ongoing use.

The video combines material from Mockridge, Stahle, and Mitchel, State Library of Victoria Archive, Alex
Alexander Archives, Google Earth, photography by Pier Carthew and Keelan O’Hehir, and speculative
design proposals and video footage by Dalton Stewart. The assemblage offers a reassessment and
reflection – of both the building and site, but also of the architecture’s connection and entanglement with
social, cultural, aesthetic and environmental concerns

Location:
Cardigan House Car Park, Carlton

Dalton Stewart

B. Johannesburg, South Africa 1996. Lives and works in Naarm Melbourne, Australia.


Dalton Stewart has a creative practice that explores the reciprocity between architecture, design
and the visual arts, seeking new systems of knowledge and worldviews for our future. His work
explores deconstruction and reuse, to broach the complex histories and cultural significance of
buildings, materials and processes within the built environment.
He completed a BFA from the Victorian College of the Arts (2016), where he was the recipient of
the John Vickery Scholarship, and is currently undertaking a Master of Architecture at the
Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne (2019–) and was awarded the MacDonald
Scholarship (2020). His work has been exhibited at fairs, galleries and institutions, including the
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Coolchange Contemporary, Perth;
Firstdraft, Sydney; Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne; and the National Gallery of Victoria’s
Design Fair, Melbourne.

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This video is included in the exhibition 'Exterior Monologue', curated by Olivia O'Donnell and Virginia Overell as part of the 2024 MSD x Melbourne Design Week program.

See videos from all contributors on the Exterior Monologue playlist:
   • Exterior Monologue  

https://designweek.melbourne/
Melbourne Design Week and The Victorian Design Program are initiatives of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
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