Architects and heritage advocates call it façadism: it’s either a dirty word or a pragmatic way to keep at least the veneer of history alive on our streets.

It’s the modern practice where most or all of a historic building is bulldozed, apart from the exterior façade, to become an anachronistic frontage to a new construction.

We’re seeing it on the increasingly confused streetscapes of Adelaide, where we continue to allow precious old buildings to moulder away and tear down heritage places.

Often, the best result we can hope for is that the now ubiquitous glass-fronted towers will leave a wafer of history exposed to the street.

It says a lot that Marshall-era heritage minister David Speirs considered it a major victory when the developers of the old Southern Cross Arcade site eventually agreed to keep the beautiful art deco frontage of the Sands and McDougall building.

The result looks odd – like a postage stamp stuck on a windscreen – but it’s better than nothing.

There are rare excellent examples – most notably Her Majesty’s Theatre which was completely razed apart from the elegant façade. It was rebuilt with care and class, respecting its heritage and history. Importantly, it retained the cultural use of the building.

The Sands and McDougall art deco façade during construction of the new office building. Photo: Belinda Willis

Nothing could be further from this approach than the impending tragedy looming at the other end of the city.

The Crown & Anchor Hotel, established in 1853 and rebuilt in 1880, the spiritual home of Adelaide’s live music scene in the East End, is slated to be killed – gutted, filleted and reskinned.

Behind the fancied-up heritage façade will be yet another café and/or “retail space”, a laundry, “waste room”, “yoga/dancing room” and study areas for the students who will live in the 19-storey apartment building that will crouch on top of what’s left of the Cranker like a pixelated King Kong.

The architects who prepared the Heritage Impact Statement for developers Wee Hur Holdings claim the development is unlikely to “dominate, encroach on or unduly impact” on the local heritage site.

Very few people are buying that assessment.

Regardless, beyond architect- and planning-speak, there’s a truth that no one can deny: the plans might maintain a version of the pub’s façade but they will remove its soul.

Another little corner of Adelaide will be sanitised and smothered, like the sad northern edge of Port Adelaide’s inner harbour where every strand of maritime character has been shaved away thanks to myopic developers and political indifference.

The decision on whether the development on the Crown & Anchor site goes ahead is in the hands of the independent State Commission Assessment Panel, not the government.

That’s something Labor member for Adelaide Lucy Hood has been keen to point out, but the state government will be held responsible by many people if these plans go ahead.

The large and vocal Cranker community is desperate for the government to step in, and why wouldn’t they be?

Labor campaigned in the Dunstan by-election on protecting the heritage and character of our streets; it told the community before the election that it would protect heritage places.

Then, in government, it passed special legislation to fast-track the demolition of the state heritage listed Thebarton police barracks to make way for a new hospital and it hasn’t shown any appetite to intervene in the Cranker issue – covered by a less stringent local heritage listing.

Clearly, something needs to be done in this case and into the future because the planning system has again shown a yawning gap.

As Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith pointed out this week, Adelaide’s heritage rules don’t protect the cultural use of a place – a regulatory hold that has allowed façadism to flourish.

The Crown & Anchor hotel would be demolished but its facade would remain as a “heritage” item under plans for a 19-storey student apartment tower. Image: Brown Falconer/Plan SA

Planning Minister Nick Champion’s comments so far indicate the government has little appetite for change in this area.

“The built form is protected… you can’t really protect the culture that surrounds a particular building,” he said.

Can’t or won’t?

The reality is that most recent South Australian governments have seen heritage laws as a painful barrier to their overwhelming desire to see “cranes in the sky” – an emblem, in their eyes, of economic success.

However, the framing of urban development being an endless battle between conservative old Adelaide and visionary developers is tired, boring and counterproductive. Of course, a smart contemporary city can preserve its heritage – within all meanings of that word – and create new and exciting places.

If we want to attract a new generation of people to Adelaide, we need to offer more than cookie-cutter buildings you can find in 1000 other cities. We need the kind of character and culture that places like the Cranker offer.

The architects’ assessment of the Cranker submitted to planning authorities by the developer makes a presumption that the internal architecture isn’t of any heritage value.

It also justifies plans to strip back the frontage to its 1920s appearance. In doing so, even the façade would become almost unrecognisable to most contemporary Adelaideans.

If accepted by the commission, these arguments will erase history, exile the Cranker’s existing users and make Adelaide a bleaker, less interesting place.

What does heritage protection mean if the living cultural purpose and meaning of a place are destroyed?

It’s just a façade.

Notes on Adelaide is a weekly column reflecting on the city, its strengths and its foibles. You can read more Notes on Adelaide in SALIFE’s print editions.