Seventh-day Adventist Church in Turner, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, Granted Heritage Listing

The Canberra National Seventh-day Adventist Church in Turner has been officially heritage listed after meeting two of the criteria under the ACT Heritage Act. The church had been provisionally listed in February, a step intended to increase the protection and recognition of modernist architecture in the Australian Capital Territory. Only one criterion was needed for official listing.

The statement of historical significance says the church, designed by prominent Australian architect Ken Woolley, is an excellent example of Modernist church design. It incorporates characteristics of the late 20th-century Ecclesiastical and Sydney Regional styles, which are integrated with features related to the church’s function as a Seventh-day Adventist place of worship. The church is thought to be the only church of its kind in Australia that incorporates symbolic aspects of Seventh-day Adventist liturgy.

According to the statement, the church demonstrated the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places or objects, and a high degree of creative or technical achievement for a particular period. The building combines red-brown Bowral brick, painted western red cedar in the walls and window joinery, and brown roll-formed steel decking on the roof. Its asymmetrical shape, the lack of concern for a façade as a presentation front, and its skillion roof are cited as Sydney Regional features.

Inside, the traditional rectangular seating arrangement, set at a right angle to the high outer wall, and the plain white surfaces are described as Ecclesiastical in character. Woolley deliberately incorporated symbolism into the design, including the central role of water and baptism in Seventh-day Adventist belief. The massive external buttresses rise from the courtyard pool, which the statement says suggests the building is rising from the water.

The statement also notes that seating is set lower than the external pool, and that the congregation’s focus is on the baptismal font on the right side of the rostrum. The interior’s play of light, combined with the white walls, was intended to symbolise purity, and a dramatic skylight focuses light on the immersion font. In 1996, the church received a Royal Australian Institute of Architects Twenty-five Year Award from the ACT Chapter.

Heritage listing preserves the building’s design and the meaning its architect built into it for future generations, a concern tied to remembering the past and passing on the faith (Psalm 78:4).

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