Tiser and Titanic

"The Advertiser" has long been an Adelaide newspaper and later, since completion of its modern premises in 1960, an Adelaide landmark.

The Advertiser Building on King William Street, just north of the Post Office, was not the city's first "highrise" - a 1925 ten-story building on the corner of Grenfell and King William Streets was that.

In 1959 a small cluster of old buildings which comprised the Advertiser offices and print area and Griffin Press was torn down to make way for the white structure, shown here in mid-2003.

The Advertiser, and the MLC building on Victoria Square, as well as the now-gone new Police Building on the south side of the Square, were the great constructions of the sixties.

The MLC is still there. It was famous in the sixties for its rooftop tower array of coded flashing lights forecasting the weather. Locals carried a small MLC card which explained the code, a clever piece of PR work!

Late last year the Advertiser moved to temporary premises a block west whilst the familiar white tower was demolished. It's seen here (facing west) as a vacant block, behind which a new Advertiser white tower is well under way. The white wall panels are probably close to the height of the old premises, which were slightly nearer the camera (or phone, in this case).


The Police HQ has been replaced by the new, more pretentious and somewhat unattractive Federal Court (left) - called by many "The Titanic", and it's easy to picture some Judge standing on the "bow" with arms outspread shouting "I'm king of the world!"

Alongside it, the state Magistrates Court is still housed in a refurbished development of its original two-storey premises with a much more dignified facade of stone pillars.

The city has not displayed a lot of architectural taste in recent years (consider the North Terrace Wine Centre overpowering the nearby historical buildings). At least the new 'Tiser is not pursuing inventiveness to an undignified level.