December 2025

Just found a two fine photos of the long gone HQ for Bank of NSW, which was in Collins Street next to the Gothic Bank. Both pics are from @library_vic, and by the Mines Department, and the same but days apart.

It was built in 1934-5, and designed by Godfrey & Spowers in a restrained version of Art Deco, a bit traditional, clad in granite and sandstone. It had huge bronze doors, with a fine geometric pattern (pic 4 shows them partly closed), and a big banking chamber with a giant skylight and stylish vertical light strips. The pics from Building Magazine include one of the bronze lift doors ‘of the bi-parting type’, and the safe. (The facade was practically copied in 1939 by the one applied to the CBA bank just a block away, pic 10).

The new bank replaced their ornate 1858 bank, which was designed by #JosephReedArchitect – the facade was so highly regarded it was dismantled and gifted to Melb Uni (though they didn’t re-erect it till about 1939).

The Deco replacement was itself demolished in the mid 70s, along with the 1911 Collins House next door, for another expansion by the Bank of NSW – the rather dull office tower once known as #CollinsWalesHouse.

Lastly I’ve blown up the flower seller in the first two pics, seems the vendor was a man in a suit, and he had more to sell in the first one !

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