12 February 2023
The former Women’s Hospital Carpark, Grattan Street, Carlton, designed by Mockridge Stahle & Mitchell and built in 1974 is rather good architecture, from the soft end of Brutalism. Recommend for heritage listing, generating some local opposition, of course. I’ve always quite liked it, the rounded edges in board marked concrete, the fawn bricks, the native planting. Clearly inspired by similar more stark carparks, namely the 1969 Preston Bus Station in the north of England, by Ingham and Wilson, and the more sculptural 1959 Temple Street Parking Garage in Yale by Brutalist pioneer Paul Rudolph (just got a nice big book on him).
Early pics and design sketch thanks to @mcmalexander – looks like it was originally going to have textured precast conc end walls too; and someone of Facebook who said they worked on it tells me that apparently the timber board mark texture was done with fibreglass ! The landscaping was by Beryl Mann, I think a row of guns planted, one was as tall as the building in a 2016 photo by @brutalistcharm, now gone.
Comments from Instagram
phunnyfotos.on.flickr I love that the parking fees are in cents !!
oldvintagemelbourne Iconic carpark
urbantrek a giant mural on the side would be good.. surprised its never been done
peter.malatt Love it too, Le corbisier’s chandigar work is possibly another influence. It would be a brilliant conversion building except the floors are sloping and the fl-fl very low.
hiltonmarlton Photo 6 shows the inherent problem with exposed concrete buildings. They are rotting from the inside. The ferrous metal armatures are oxidising, weakening the structural integrity of these brutalist buildings. They are a future conservation nightmare and a terrible legacy for future generations. In the interim, we still have to look and experience them. Thats another whole can of worms.
girlies4rgz Idk if we should be heritage listing car parks. It would be more useful as housing for students or just regular folks! Preserving car dependency is a bit cringe 🤷
martinronniestella @girlies4rgz and where do nurse park?
princessjaipur @martinronniestella you don’t know the Royal Women’s moved years ago ? And the hospital building no longer exists because it was demolished ? No need for it now.
tallstorey @girlies4rgz there will always be a need for carparks i think. new apartments always have carparking for instance.
girlies4rgz @tallstorey agreed on that. But maybe preserving a car park for all of eternity so that nothing else can ever be built there is bad actually
tallstorey @girlies4rgz but if it always fills a need ? If one day cars are outlawed or we all use self diving Ubers, then yes it would be hard to find another use except maybe storage. Though I still think it would find a use as an automatic charging station for the auto cars at night !
martinronniestella Car parking is c always needed. Just got back from the CBD no parking left unless it’s the weekend.
18 April 2023:
That youngish woman from Carlton against the heritage listing has been in the news more than once; apparently she’s a millennial who thinks heritage listing things gets in the way of providing affordable housing for her age group. But of course there’s plenty of places not heritage listed, or even places that are that get partially demolished for apartment developments- which are unaffordable because there are too many people older or with inherited $ who can afford them, amongst many related reasons. It’s the old and never proven ‘if more was built it would be more affordable’ argument, to which I’d say there’s an LOT being built but that hadn’t made them more affordable. And in this case I’m sure she just doesn’t like the architecture, but I quite like it. And it’s certainly one of the most distinctive car park buildings in Melbourne.
Unfortunately on my instagram some comments were rather unkind, but some more or less agreed with her.
Storey of Melbourne 
I take the view that this carpark is unique and for all the reasons mentioned needs to be protected against demolition or being repurposed for another use.
In addition, the ´inner’ suburbs of Melbourne are increasing becoming unpleasant places to live as residents use public roads / streets to park vehicles. The result meaning that these streets more often than not become single lane roads that are incapable of handling traffic. Then these the issue of emergency vehicles being slowed or not even able to access these streets.
Bikes are NOT the solution, if we continue to regard car parking as something we don’t need and people continue to see that car parking space in front their property as being their spot’ then we will very quickly reach the point where these inner Melbourne suburbs will not be valued as the choice place to live. I believe we are well on the way to seeing this happen. Perhaps it’s to late to go back.
What’s attractive about a inner suburban streets full of residents parked cars. Properties should have off street parking so as to clear these streets and in doing so improve there appearance while dramatically improving traffic flows.
This carpark for many reasons must remain.
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