Repost 2019:

Recently repainted, #CurtinHouse, #SwanstonStreet, still a sort of #beigebrown scheme, as it has been as long as Ive known it ! Since the 80s, when it was cheap office space, long time home of the ‘genies’, the #GeneologicalSociety, wonder of they’re still around what with ancestry.com etc ? Now of course it’s a ‘#verticallane’ with bars and restaurants and shops and the famous rooftop, which I see now has things on it. The first big city project by #HarryNorris, 1922, for the #TattersallsClub, men who liked horse racing, Cookie is their old club room, they were gone by the late 30s though. It’s a sort of tall but shallow building, or rather L shaped, in rear bit being the #rooftopcinema. The style is sort of early #StippedClassical, with various classical elements but stylised, the thing he did a few years later on the Nicholas Building, but far bolder. As far as i could tell, it’s not named after the ex Prime Minister, it seems to have got the current name a few years after he died in 1945, but I couldn’t find any connection- perhaps the then owners were named Curtin?

Cookie on #SwanstonStreet is a great space, feels very #oldeworlde, and that’s because it is, more or less, since it was originally a #clubroom. The whole building was built by the #TattersallsClub, which was some kind of men’s club associated with #horseracing, in 1922 – though they went bust in the late 30s, when the room was advertised for lease ‘as a clubroom complete with bar and kitchen’, and the building became known as #CurtinHouse in the late 40s. It was designed by a then 34 yo #HarryNorris, his first big commission, not sure what he was thinking here though, the details sort of double-up, the #compositecapitals, hold up a set of brackets, and in two different ways; I guess it makes for a more interesting elaborate ceiling, which fortunately has survived the years – I remember when it was briefly a gallery in the late 90s, a huge empty space with a rough floor with the imprint of the parquetry that had been removed, and later it was used as a not quite legal share house. In 2000 the whole building was bought by a group of investors, who then restored it, and installed a range of venues and creative industries. This floor became Cookie, a delightful bar/restaurant, designed by @phillip.schemnitz, retained the columns and beams etc, some a bit lost in the services, and the timber panelling (and the urinals!), and added traditional elements like floorboards, and maybe the column mirrors, creating an instant timeless quality. Unchanged after 24 years, hope it lives on, since the original features aren’t heritage protected. Even the men’s urinals are original! Pics 1, 4, not mine.

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