#KurrajongHouse in #CollinsStreet near the Regent is fine to look at but curiously without a clear style; it’s sort of squared off abstracted classical but really quite plain except that it’s all windows, mostly in the protruding central bay. Built 1936-27, it was designed by #RMandMHKing, a father and son team, better known for houses, … Continue reading Kurrajong is a tree not a bird 😁
Tag: Interwar
Big old office building, National Bank, Geelong, 1928
I like it, nice detailing, but I think it’s rather #topheavy, the way the lower levels are inset behind the #faience #ioniccolumns. #NationalBankofAustralasia, #MalopStreet, #Geelong, completed Jan 1928, designed by #TompkinsandTompkins from Melbourne, squeezing it in with all their other work! Chamber us intact too, though you can hardly see the columns through the clutter.
Cage lift, Geelong.
So exciting ! Went looking in #Geelong for interwar lobbies/interiors, pushed open the very closed looking side door to the 1928 National Bank, and found an operating #cagelift ! Very smooth action. No lobby to speak of though. But lots of #grillage, and in mid century grey-green. Apparently it’s residential upstairs.
Public Benefit Bootery facadism.
A wonderful pairing of intact historic buildings, #PublicBenefitBootery, Grainger Little Barlow & Hawkins, 1924 and #DevaHouse, 1926, #HarryNorris - but great changes planned that might keep only the front wall and a bit of side of the PBB, as part of plans to redevelop #TheWalkArcade superblock for a big hotel. It could instead be converted … Continue reading Public Benefit Bootery facadism.
Chart House c1940 and Melbourne House 1923, Little Bourke Street
Chart House c1940, architect unknown - pretty radical for 1940, looks so 50s, except for the #steelframedwindows, with opening leaves, 50s would be aluminium frames. I don’t love it, but it’s very interesting. Rather oddly the heritage study by @lovellchen says the front was altered in the 50s, but the side wasn’t, so only the … Continue reading Chart House c1940 and Melbourne House 1923, Little Bourke Street
The Gatwick vs The Block
For anyone who watched #TheBlock2018, here’s a reminder of what the inside of the #TheGatwickHotel looked like before they demolished it all in order to create empty shells for the contestants to decorate. I’m still fuming that the @CityOfPortPhillip didn’t lift a finger to try to save any of this (and the perfectly intact 1937 … Continue reading The Gatwick vs The Block
St Columbas, Elwood, 1929, AA Fritsch
One of the many many #redbrick #Romanesque/#Byzantine/#Gothic #CatholicChurches designed by the wonderfully named #AugustusFritsch, aka #AAFritsch. If you see a church like that anywhere in Victoria it’s probably his, or maybe #FritschandFritsch, in partnership with his son. His first churches were in this style, nicely eclectic Edwardian in the 1900s, which he barely changed for … Continue reading St Columbas, Elwood, 1929, AA Fritsch
When Art Deco arrived in Victoria
This article appeared in Spirit of Progress, Journal of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia, Autumn 2016 As an architecture student in the 1980s, we were taught that the first fully bona-fide Art Deco building in Melbourne was the delightful Yule House designed b Oakley & Parkes, in Little Collins Street. Five storeys … Continue reading When Art Deco arrived in Victoria