Sugar Research Institute is a heritage-listed former research station at 239 Nebo Road, West Mackay, Mackay, Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Karl Langer and built in 1953 by Don Johnstone. Harold Vivian Marsh Brown designed a second stage in 1963 that was built in 1966. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 14 March 2008.
History.
The Mackay Sugar Research Institute was constructed in 1953 by builder Don Johnstone to a design by prominent architect Karl Langer. Initially, only one section, the eastern wing, was constructed, with the second or western wing opened in August 1966. Mackay architect Harold Brown prepared plans for the second stage of the building in 1963 based on Langer's original design.
Background.
Following the exploration and mapping of pastoral runs in the Mackay district in the early 1860s, the fertile land was soon reduced to smaller selections. It was found that the region was particularly suited to the growing of sugar cane and by 1870 the production of sugar was the region's principal industry. The development of the industry was assisted by the opening of a State Nursery in 1889. Originally built to explore the suitability of diverse forms of agriculture, the "Lagoons" site became the centre for research into cane varieties and more efficient methods of production. Renamed the Mackay Sugar Experiment Station and including laboratories and residences, it was transferred to the Te Kowai mill site in 1935.
The Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations had been formed in 1900 as part of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock with its work financed by levies on sugar growers and millers, matched by government funding. It co-ordinated the research carried out in the three sugar-growing regions of Mackay, Cairns and Bundaberg comparing cane varieties, sampling soils and fostering better farming and irrigation methods. Millers, represented by the Australian Sugar Producers' Association, became increasingly dissatisfied with their lack of control over the direction and activities of the Bureau. This was somewhat deferred by the formation of the technology branch of the Bureau.
Established in 1929, the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists held its first conference at Cairns in 1930, convened by Norman Bennett of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. This was after preliminary meetings of the representatives of 16 sugar mills, six engineering firms and the Central Cane Prices Board. Other absentee mill owners were reputedly uncertain about disclosing trade secrets that such an alliance might bring but the formation of the group was in the face of "stark ruin, with overseas prices on which cheap labour countries could not exist. To some it appeared that the expansion of the previous period had been a mistake..." a situation which was to repeat in years to come. By 1948 both the Queensland Cane Growers' Council and the Australian Sugar Producers' Association were again concerned and angry because the Bureau had lost a string of highly skilled personnel [including two directors], to more highly paid jobs.
In 1949, the Australian sugar industry comprised mainly small cane farms located along the continent's tropical and sub-tropical Queensland and New South Wales coastline. The 5.5 million tonne cane crop, almost entirely grown in Queensland, was crushed by 34 raw sugar mills, most of which were owned co-operatively by growers. The highly regulated sugar industry was still recovering from material and labour shortages caused by World War II and was endeavouring to reassert its position in the world marketplace as a steady, consistent supplier of raw sugar. To achieve this goal, the industry's leaders determined they would have to expand cane production and the factories would have to improve sugar recovery and increase processing rates. The key was a speedy improvement in technological standards. As the government refused to entertain a proposal to place the Bureau of Experiment Stations outside the public service the Sugar Producers' Association formed a committee to draft the constitution for a new sugar industry funded and controlled research institute.
Proposal and design.
Sugar Research Limited was incorporated on 22 February 1949 with 22 companies representing 24 mills as original subscribers, although some smaller mills joined soon thereafter and the Colonial Sugar Refinery provided an annual payment. The inaugural board of Sugar Research Ltd first met in March 1949 with its most pressing tasks being the appointment of a director and establishing a centre for research. George Shaw, a future federal MP, was deputy chairman and a frequent spokesperson.
Dr Henry William (Bill) Kerr, who had joined the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations in 1928, progressing to be the director from 1933 to 1943, was appointed the first director of the Sugar Research Institute (1949–61). Kerr was the driving force behind the establishment of the institute and well known in the Australian sugar industry for his important achievements. He developed and implemented soil analytical procedures for the assessment of available phosphorus, potassium and total replaceable bases. He introduced to sugar agriculture a system of replicated experiments, with statistical analysis and interpretation of results. Kerr was a member of the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (from 1979 the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists) from its establishment in 1929 until his death in 1992.
The board decided to establish the Sugar Research Institute's central laboratories in Mackay, as an acknowledgement that Mackay in 1949 was both the largest sugar growing district (out of the three main sugar growing areas – Bundaberg, Cairns and Mackay) as well as being the geographical centre of the Australian sugar industry. The board invited Dr Karl Langer to discuss building plans.
Karl Langer was born in Vienna in 1903 where he lived until migrating to Australia in 1939 with his wife Gertrude. Langer studied architecture in Vienna graduating in 1926. During this time he had worked in the office of Josef Frank, who was to become well known in Swedish modernism. In 1933 Langer was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis entitled "Origins and Development of Concrete Construction".
At the outbreak of World War II, Langer and Gertrude arrived in Sydney in May 1939 proceeding to Brisbane in July. Langer left employment with Queensland Railways in 1946 to establish his own architectural practice. He worked throughout Australia and was the initiator of many influential urban design ideas such as the site for the Sydney Opera House and the pedestrianisation of Queen Street. He was the designer of buildings such as Main Roads Building, Spring Hill; St Peters Chapel, Indooroopilly; Lennon's Broadbeach Hotel on the Gold Coast, and worked in the regional centres of Queensland as an architect, town planner and landscape architect.
The name Karl Langer is now synonymous with modernist architecture in Queensland and his connection with Mackay predates the building. Langer had been offered the position of assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council in 1944 but the controversy and publicity surrounding this appointment brought him to the attention of the Mackay City Council which commissioned him to revise that city's town plan.
Langer was also an acquaintance of the secretary of the Sugar Research Institute and was engaged to design the building with offices, boardroom, drawing office and a library and lecture room on the ground floor. The first floor was to house research laboratories. The design provided a single storey utility building, an annexe to the main structure, containing workshops, stores and a machinery room. Later, a second wing could be added to the main building providing additional workshops and laboratory space to cater for expansion of the research institute.
A residence for the director was planned next to the laboratories. According to the original plans for the main building and utilities building the tender for the director's house was described as being "under a separate tender." However this may refer to the construction of the building being under a separate tender rather than its design which is also attributed to Langer. Mrs Betty Kerr, HW Kerr's wife, discussed with Langer the need for some alterations to the design of the residence. One particular change related to the need to block the view to the kitchen from the front door. Prior to Mrs Kerr requesting this change a person at the front door was able to see through to the kitchen.
Langer's plans also provided for the landscaping of the site as well as the provision of a caretaker's cottage. The caretaker's cottage is currently let to tenants. Whilst Langer's plans provided for a caretaker's cottage it is unclear if the existing building which was used as a caretaker's cottage was purpose-built or if the building was already existing when the land was purchased by the institute. The stylistic indicators of the building including its hipped roof, lack of sunhoods due to wide eaves and its corner casement windows suggest a date of mid to late 1930.
Langer's pioneering use of climatic design in Queensland can be seen in the main institute building in the decorative restraint evident in the facade detailing and composition, the efficient but spacious planning of the building and the consideration given to a northern orientation. The northern orientation allowed for improved shading in summer and better light in winter. With the laboratories located on the southern side of the building this orientation allowed for a more even distribution of light to these areas.
Post-war shortages of both skilled labour and materials caused costs to escalate. The new director insisted that the director's residence both accommodate his wife and family of five children plus their maid and "be of a type appropriate to the status of director" and suitable for entertaining guests from overseas. Escalating costs meant that Kerr was asked to modify his expectations and the institute building was completed in stages.
The sugar industry, in 1949, was on the threshold of the buoyant sugar markets of the 1950s and in 1950 Justice Alan Mansfield was appointed to head a Royal Commission for the orderly expansion of the industry. Most mills prepared ambitious plans.
The Institute in operation.
The Sugar Research Institute – "a monument to the Australian sugar industry" – was opened on Saturday, 22 August 1953 by then Federal Treasurer, Sir Arthur Fadden. More than 100 official guests attended the opening during which Fadden stated that "there was no industry in Australia better organised than sugar production" and that "sugar is not only a Queensland industry, not only a national industry, but an international industry of great importance".
The building provided an environment for chemists and engineers to scientifically study the milling process in co-operation with its practical application. The institute's focus from its establishment was to find solutions to industry problems via a program of short-term research and strategic design and construction projects. As a non-government funded research institute, the Sugar Research Institute is comparably rare. CSR was involved in experimental research, so whilst the Sugar Research Institute is not the only example of a private research institution, it is still unusual.
The landscaping of the institute was part of Langer's design, which included the planting of royal palms (Roystonea regia) along the roadside perimeter. The palms were planted in 1954 (a total of 58 at the time) to represent each of the institute's member mills. The second half of the building, the mirror image of the first side, was completed to Langer's original design and opened in August 1966. Mackay architect Harold Vivian Marsh Brown prepared plans for the second stage of the building in 1963.
Twenty-five years after being established, Institute-researched improvements in mill technology had tripled sugar production. By 1972 the institute had developed improvements in cane transportation by improving scheduling, and reducing operating costs and capital expenditure; milling research that improved extraction through improved performance and reductions in capital expenditure; clarification studies that reduced losses and lime consumption; sugar quality; effluent treatment; elongated grain and filterability penalties and air pollution by developing suitable equipment to meet the standards set.
The institute's annual general meetings and technical conferences were always well attended providing opportunities for mill personnel to discuss any issues with factories and to liaise with colleagues. The meetings and conferences were held in the main building in the library/lecture hall on the ground floor, the ETS Pearce Library, until the Charles Young Conference Hall was opened. Eddie Pearce was the general secretary of the Australian Sugar Producers' Association and was a major contributor in the establishment of the Sugar Research Institute.
On 31 August 1973 the Charles Young Conference Hall