Elder Park Rotunda

The jewel like bandstand, or ‘rotunda’ using local colloquialism, located in Adelaide’s Elder Park, is much loved by Adelaideans past and present. Manufactured by the famous Scottish architectural iron founders, Walter MacFarlane & Company Ltd, it is one of the finest specimens of their work and the oldest example in South Australia of what in 1881 was a new building type. Donated by Sir Thomas Elder, one of South Australia’s great philanthropists and a lover of music, it was a symbol of the blossoming of culture on the fringe of the civilised world.

Following the proven ICOMOS Burra Charter process of research and understanding informing the necessary work, a series of problems contributing to the deterioration of the structure have been addressed and a new colour scheme introduced. With its new painted and gilded livery reinforcing its innate elegance, the diminutive but culturally significant Rotunda remains the focus of Elder Park and more than holds its own in the wider evolving context of the Torrens Riverbank.