October 2018
Francis House, #CollinsStreet, up near 101 Collins, always a fave, I guess cos it looks so cute squeezed between the other buildings.
#FrancisHouse, by #BlackettandForster, 1927, famous for winning the first architecture award in Victoria, the #StreetArchitectureMedal, in 1929 (which, as it sounds, was about how it graced the street, and mostly went to grand city commercial buildings for the next decade). Beautiful shopfront too.
The Australian Home Beautiful described the winner in 1927 (with B&W pic) as ….”pleasantly prim and Georgian…..it is just the right colour and has a suspicion of maidenly propriety that is very attractive”.
Francis was a chemist, a business that had started in Bourke Street in 1849, and their 1914 building is still there, near Davis Jones. They must have did well in the 1920s, relocating to the area surrounded by the top medical specialists in what later became known as the #ParisEnd of #CollinsStreet. Last pic of the gracious streetscape is 1930.
25 September 2019:
This is I think the best old-school #shopwindow in the city, and it was for a chemist ! Henry Francis & Co., 1927; I guess being a #CollinsStreet chemist was lucrative, since the whole 6 storey building was built for them.
August 2026, after the sign had been uncovered- but it will be covered again soon for a Graff jewellery store.
