😮 I knew this was happening but still…this is the 1970 offices of #YunckenFreeman on King Street in West Melbourne, and it’s being facaded for a hotel development (which is better than it was going to be). The first example of modernist #facadism, and prob not the last, though new @cityofmelbourne guidelines very much say it’s not ok anymore. First image streetview from Dec 2020, then SLV, then the proposal, then Graeme Butler last week.
More early photos post match 2016 from Simon Reeves via Victorian Modern FB page :
Feb 2022:
I knew that Melb modernist architects Yuncken Freeman very much channeled Chicago firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill, but I didn’t realise they also went back to their source, German transplant Mies Van der Rohe himself, who was producing his minimalist steel architecture in Chicago in the 50s/60s – just read a great biography from 2012, and his 1961 Bacardi HQ in Mexico City was clearly the inspiration for the YF king street west melbourne offices, now just 3 facades with a tower being built on top.
Images Barcadi x 3, YF x 3:
Storey of Melbourne 