Original post 2016:

Repost from 2016: So who remembers the ‘Green Latrine’ ? Perhaps few of you, since this huge unloved modernist government building on the Spring Street / Latobe Street corner opposite the Carlton Gardens was demolished in the late 1980s.

It was notable for its great scale and early date, the first stage finished in October 1958, a month before its more elegant cousin, the height-limit busting ICI Building. By contrast, the Commonwealth Centre stopped at the 40m height limit, and was more conservative in design, though still way ahead of many others at the time. It was also notable for being designed by Cynthia Teague, one of the rare senior female architects at the time. Though quite stylish, it was also quite massive, over two joined blocks (the second built 1966, with three more planned), It was full of public servants, and most unexciting of all, the end walls were clad in pale green ceramic tiles, the colour seen in government buildings and bathrooms; the probable source of the name. Though unloved, it was better than the agglomeration of vaguely postmodern apartment blocks that finally filled the empty site in the late 1990s.

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