79Now the National Museum of Australia.

79   Now the National Museum of Australia.

80   Proust, History of Medicine in Canberra and Queanbeyan, p. 172; Proust, MJA, 4 July 1994, p. 62; Eric Sparke, Canberra 1954-1980, Canberra, AGPS, 1988, pp. 327-8; NFSA leaflet, ‘The National Film and Sound Archive Heritage Courtyard’, c. 1994.

 

 

At the same time as the courtyard’s opening, the NFSA was constituted as a statutory authority, with the government appointing an Interim Advisory Council to run it. Hitherto, the Archive had been the only Commonwealth ‘collecting agency’ which was not a statutory authority. Its new status allowed the organisation, among other things, to undertake more commercial activities. These included hiring out the courtyard and parts of the building for such public uses as wedding receptions or as a location for shooting films and television programs. On 14 October 1991, the then Minister for the Arts, Tourism

and Territories opened – or, more accurately, re-opened – the theatre as the State Theatrette which had been ‘relocated’ from its former site at Market Street in Sydney. The theatrette provided a venue at which patrons could pay to view film screenings. The venue retained the original features and fittings of the Institute’s lecture theatre, including its lights, wallpaper, curtains, carpets, ticket box and even its well-worn seats. More up-to-date seating was generously donated in 1994 by Ronin Cinemas in the form of seats it was replacing in its Academy Twin Cinema in Sydney.81

In October 1994, the Keating Labor government released its ‘Creative Nation’ cultural policy statement in which it announced plans to refurbish the Institute building and provide it with new accommodation. A Conservation Management Plan for the building was completed in the following year and, at that time, the government put forward plans to build a two-storey extension facing Liversidge Street at the rear of the Institute.

 

Figure 28: Prime Minister Bob Hawke opening the NFSA, 1991 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

 

Prime Minister Bob Hawke opening in the NFSA in 1991

 

81   Canberra Times, 7 September 1991, p. 5; 15 October 1991, p. 3; National Film and Sound Archive Newsletter, no. 14, August 1994, p. 11; National Film and Sound Archive leaflet, ‘The Archive’, c. 1995.

 

 

The extension, which was intended to house the Film and Sound Archive’s principal administrative and technical functions, was to be linked to the original building. It was to cost an estimated $12.4 million to build, with work scheduled to start in April 1996. The project was in effect a revival of Cumpston’s unsuccessful proposals to have such an extension built in 1937-38 and again in 1944. It also reportedly accorded with the views of the Institute’s architect, W.H. Morris, who in 1985 – five years before his death – told a representative of the National Capital Development Commission that it