12 July 2024
I’ve always quite liked this Modernist curtain wall bldg in Collins Street next to the Block; being narrow and under the 40m height limit it fits in, but also stands out with its red spandrels. It was built for Allan’s Music Store in 1957, and designed by Godfrey Spowers Hughes Mewton & Lobb (what a mouthful). Allen’s had been on the site since 1878, in a delicious Gothic confection designed by Terry & Oakden that was sadly destroyed by fire in 1955, captured in a dramatic photo from the Met Fire Brigade FB page.
Archi Historian Peter Barrett posted about this on FB in 2020, where a former employee related the story that the store’s resident cat Whiskey survived the fire, unlike the instruments or sheet music. B&W of the 57 building from the Hoddle Grid Heritage Review, and last image from @library_vic which shows it was originally one floor lower.
Storey of Melbourne 