11 July 2024
The c1960 Nylex Sign was in the Age today, noting that the developer Caydon went bust two years ago, and the Richmond Maltings site remains part vacant, part demolished – and now I look closer Im a bit aghast again at the development permitted by Heritage Victoria in 2018. At first they wanted to demolish the 1950s silos completely, plonking the sign back on top of some glassy apartments, so the compromise was to demolish the west half of the silos to make room for a quite large curvy apartment building, leaving the other half alone except for additional floors so the sign would be higher up. So a lot of change! They did the demolition in 2022, and meanwhile the sign hasn’t worked for ages (or has it?) and so memories are fading, and it’s already much less of an icon, and if something like this goes ahead, even less so; coming down Punt Road at night you’d be mainly seeing apartment windows with some old silos sandwiched in the middle with a sign on top. I note they didn’t do a view of it from there, or from the east. First pic Humans in Melb FB page, last pic Maggie’s Diaz 1960 @library_vic, other images real estate sites and from the plans. Not sure where pic 2 comes from.
Storey of Melbourne 