Should a church be recycled as an office?

from w
The old St Giles Presbyterian Church was sold a few decades ago when the church members joined the Uniting Church. It's bluestone, solid, and was recycled as a restaurant (I think) then as a nightclub (which I wasn't happy about at all and the owner eventually lost his license because there was a lot of trouble) and now it's been painted white inside and divided into spaces for three offices. No 3 at 74 Gheringhap Street Geelong is on sale for $850,000!


Should a building dedicated as a church be recycled into offices, a night-club, a house? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think it would ever happen in a place like Fiji!

The Shenton church, formerly Methodist, also became redundant a few years ago and it was sold to become the Performing Arts Centre for the Geelong High School. Well, we lived next door for nine years and I was happy about that as the school had been using the old halls etc. for many many years. Our old manse even went to the High School - the five bedrooms converted into music studios. Way to go!

GPAC courtyard

from w
After our bookclub meeting in the GPAC cafe - where we had been discussing 'The Bookseller of Kabul' I had ten minutes before chasing after a bus so I did a sketch in the courtyard of the Geelong Performing Arts Centre. I noticed that there was an old church there, which today is used for studios and shops. I coloured the pencil drawing at home but got a bit hectic with the colours ... and lazy with the stonework.

I changed it to black and white using Picasa to see the difference.