A critical mission at the Theatre site that is now completed is the erection and plugging in of the steel retention frame to hold up the former Hamilton Hotel façade while the new complex is built behind it.
In the pictures below, the scale of the frame can be seen from several angles.
Looking at the rear views above, note the grey-painted steel struts on the inside of the old wall – these are permanent reinforcements for the structure, attached with seismic screws and currently joined to the retention frame through the window portals. Eventually they will be fastened to the superstructure of the new Theatre, at which point the retention frame will have done its job and can be taken down.
See also the picture of one of the large concrete blocks that the retention frame sits on, and in particular the circular tube in a square cap at its leading edge. This is the top of one of the 20-meter-deep screw piles, down through the former footpath, that anchor the frame.
Retaining the Hamilton Hotel façade has always been a key goal – it is protected by a heritage order so it would have needed to happen whatever was built there, but the Theatre project team has always seen it as an asset and an opportunity for this cultural undertaking.