3 December 2024
I went to a lecture a long time ago where it was proposed that Art Deco arrived in Melbourne in 1926 with this bathroom, just one year after the Exposition in Paris made the style famous. But all we have is this photo from Robin Boyd’s 1947 publication Victorian Modern, where he was quite disparaging (and it is bit of a naive attempt). It was in an ‘old house’ in Alexandra Street East St Kilda, so I’ve tried to work out where. I thought likely a big house, if they could afford to redo such a big bathroom, and there were only a couple of mansions in that street, and one is still there ! The Rabbinical College of Australia now occupies a big house built in 1884 as Holmwood, still pretty intact. It was owned from 1925 by Greek born Mareeno Lucas, who with his brother Anthony Lucas operated the famous Cafe Australia, re-designed by Walter & Marion Griffin in 1916, so he had a history of avant-guard design, and it’s the right date. But might have been a different house.
Storey of Melbourne 