Pleasantly surprised to see that the additional floors on #EquityTrustees aren’t green ! They’re simpler than I thought they were going to be, so hard to keep up. Also it’s not just a hotel, it’s going to be a #HiltonHotel ! A little 244 room one. Designed by #batessmart. Nice to see as well that it’s not facadism, they’ve knocked a bit off the back, added floors, kept the ground floor chamber, stairs and lift, and one floor if offices (more or less). The first proposal was way back in 2010! #EquityChambers was built in 1930, designed by #OakleyAndParkes, better known for their Modernist designs rather than exotic Byzantine / Mediterranean like this !
Repost 2018: The exotic 1931 #Byzantine style of #EquityTrustees (#OakleyandParkes) on #BourkeStreet near William, sitting comfortably next to the slick #Modernist #CurtainWall of the 1959 #LondonAssurance (#BernardEvans). Both more or less left alone during the 20thC, but Equity now in the process of a rear tower and conversion to hotel (keeping one set of offices intact) while the Law Institute altered the lobby and jazzed up the facade of the London Assurance in 2002, and they’ve just sold it for ‘north of $30 mill’ but it’s got an Interim #HeritageOverlay thank goodness (though I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a proposal to facade it and stick another 10 storeys up behind – it would be the first glass curtain wall to be facaded).
Storey of Melbourne 