Bicentennial Conservatory at the Adelaide Botanical Gardens

The Bicentennial Conservatory at the Adelaide Botanical Gardens was built to commemorate Australia’s 1988 bicentenary, and designed by South Australian architect Guy Maron. It is the largest single span conservatory in the southern hemisphere.

The building is curved glass 100 metres long, 47 metres wide and 27 metres high.

Inside the Bicentennial Conservatory are lowland rainforest plants from northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. There is a ground level walkway and an upper walkway where visitors can see the canopy of trees and palms. Both walkways have full wheelchair access.

The Bicentennial Conservatory received a Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Award of Merit (1990) and the RAIA Sir Zelman Cowan Award (1991), which is widely recognised as Australia’s leading award for public buildings. In 2010 it was rated the 9th best building in Australia in a poll by The Australian, received the Jack Cheesman Award for Enduring Architecture in South Australia (2014), and became the ‘youngest’ building in South Australia to receive Heritage Listing (2014). The South Australian Heritage Council has described it as an outstanding example of the late 20th century structuralist style in Australia.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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