‘Ingeniously demure’: Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre

The unofficial community Facebook page for Muttaburra, a tiny Central Queensland town founded on the tribal lands of the Iningai in the 1870s and today home to fewer than 100 people, is curiously titled “I’m not trying to impress you but, I’m from Muttaburra.” This tongue-in-cheek brag by the town’s laconic and resilient burghers is material to the story of the new Brian Hooper Architect-designed Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre, a building that celebrates and commemorates the unearthing of one of Australia’s most complete dinosaur skeletons.

In 1967, local grazier Doug Langdon espied what looked like some unusual rocks in a paddock at Rosebery Downs Station, which sits on the Thomson River near Muttaburra. They turned out to be the fossilized bone remains of a hulking creature that lived more than 100 million years ago, measured 12 metres in length and weighed 15 tonnes: a dinosaur now eponymously named Muttaburrasaurus langdoni. Trawling the town’s Facebook page in preparation for a site visit (which coincided with the sixtieth Muttaburra Stock Show), I gained a glimpse into the deep, collective affection the townsfolk have for their legendary herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod. The dinosaur is a mascot for Muttaburra, and the Facebook page records the ear-to-ear smiles at the centre’s ribbon-cutting opening ceremony in September 2021, which included a cake by the Satisfaction Bakery and Cafe in nearby Barcaldine that replicated the building. This online impression is confirmed on the ground in the historic village, which sits at the official geographic centre of Queensland.

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The elliptical rampart structure has a centripetal effect that invites visitors in.

Image: Lisa Alexander

The Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre occupies a flat, rectangular lot within the wide street grid of Muttaburra, adjacent to the community hall and opposite the pub. Brian Hooper’s pro bono endeavour has yielded a landmark, highly distinguishable building: an elliptical, rampart structure that has a centripetal effect. Replacing a prosaic display and rest area, the new centre was championed by the Muttaburra Community Development Association, with the Barcaldine Regional Council as client.

Inside the centre, Doug’s dinosaur comes to life, and the well-considered interpretive works by Bree Industries immerse the visitor. The centrepiece of the display is the town’s fibreglass replica of the dinosaur, with the reassembled skeleton housed more than 1,000 kilometres away in the main hall of the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. The centre is open-air and unlocked, with a gold coin honesty box that seeks donations from visitors – this is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the place and its inhabitants. Hooper worked very closely with this tight-knit and dedicated local community for almost a decade to realize its vision for a visitor attraction that would put the town on the region’s dinosaur discovery map. Palaeontological tourism is a significant contributor to the cultural and economic vitality of this part of Queensland, and the centre is an illuminating and cordial respite on a journey through this remarkable, ancient landscape. Hooper’s building is in striking contrast to the region’s long, flat highways and the town’s timber-and-tin shops and houses. Local gidgee stone is the primary building material, mounded up in natural repose and as gabion walls that fashion the interpretive chamber. The whole structure is arranged in a cranked keyhole shape crowned with a lightweight, steel-framed orb.

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The centre represents a significant attraction in this part of regional Queensland, where palaeontological tourism is growing.

Image: Lisa Alexander

The architecture of the Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre is ingeniously demure. Hooper has instinctively entwined two architectural tropes that have shaped and defined architecture in Australia over the past century. The first is a farm-sense construction ingenuity that makes best use of what is to hand in the immediate vicinity of the problem to be solved – from technical skills to building supplies. The second draws on the potency of the Australian landscape as metaphor and material to create form and connection. Both streams have excellent (and well-documented) local and national archetypes, and yet the architectural interpretation of the centre can be pitched further afield. There is a gentle nod here to the international mid-century land art of the Northern Hemisphere – connecting Hooper’s mound to influential artworks of the movement, particularly Nancy Holt’s Up and Under in Pinsiö, Finland (1998) and Sky Mound , an incomplete landfill artwork in Kearny, New Jersey from the 1980s. Another earth-berm building reference that comes to mind is Philip Johnson’s Painting Gallery (1965), a lesser-known late-modern work located on the iconic architect’s picturesque estate in New Canaan, Connecticut. Hooper’s figure-ground diagram, outlining parapet and exaggerated, splayed entry portal share agreeable formal associations with Johnson’s buried treasury.

The Muttaburra Facebook page also prompted a visit to a Queensland government website where we could all have our say on the selection of the state’s new fossil emblem. Muttaburrasaurus langdoni was one of 12 candidates – but voting closed on 10 July 2022, readers, so it’s too late to nominate a preference. And for the people of Muttaburra, Muttaburrasaurus langdoni is much more than a state-sanctioned emblem or a cute motif used to decorate a tourist souvenir or highway billboard. The dinosaur is a rallying point for this far-sighted community, which has embraced architecture in securing the future of its beloved town.