Install House Partners Hill

In Walter Benjamin’s observations of Moscow in 1927, the radical fluidity and experimentation of postrevolutionary existence is memorably portrayed. “Each thought, each day, each life lies here as on a laboratory table.” Private life had been effectively abolished by the Bolsheviks, such that eight households might be squeezed into an apartment intended for a single family. “Through the hall door,” writes Benjamin, “one steps into a little town. More often still, an army camp.”¹

As I step though the rear door of Ingle Hall, the early colonial mansion that is presently the Partners Hill base in Hobart, with partner and young child in tow, we encounter a mobilization in progress. Introductions are made – one couple with their young daughter in the first