The #FootscrayPsychiatricCentre is a real #Brutalist beauty ! (photos by @johnjovic) – I helped write the nomination to #HeritageVictoria, and today they said yes ! Being a good example of #Brutalism, with all that sculptural #offformconcrete (the big slightly yellow panels are actually#precast) was only one reason, it’s also demonstrative of the #deinstitutionalisation that started in the 1960s, building short term treatment clinics like this attached to hospitals rather than sending people to giant institutions like #Willsmere. A great idea, but it seems not funded properly these days ! This place was designed by the #PublicWorksDepartment, opened in 1977, but hasn’t been used since the 90s, I think by then the more homey courtyard-style single storey complexes were thought the way to go- there’s one (I think) on the other side of #FootscrayHospital. This one looks so blank and forbidding because the residential rooms have just a single tall thin window inset between the projecting parts, I suppose in order to provide views out but not in, and so a calmer environment, but I’m just guessing. The whole hospital is going to be replaced on another site, so this can become maybe student housing ? Or just offices ? Also, the very 70s #gumtrees were part of the plan, all grown up now.
Storey of Melbourne 