Manchester Unity Building, 220-226 Collins Street & 91-107 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Manchester Unity Building, 220-226 Collins Street & 91-107 Swanston Street, Melbourne
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Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 109267
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Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
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Graphic materialsTextual material
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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UnrestrictedOpen access.
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2023:__________________________________________________DATE: 1932;ASSOCIATIONS: Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows;DESIGNER: Barlow, Marcus R;BUILDER: Walter Cooper Pty Ltd.Style: Neo-GothicPeriod: Inter-War.VICTORIA HERITAGE REGISTER H0411https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/728What is significant?The Manchester Unity Building was built in 1932 by Walter Cooper Pty Ltd. It was designed by the architect Marcus R Barlow to meet the corporate needs of the Manchester Unity Group, a friendly society with 28,000 members in 1932. The twelve storey building, located prominently on the corner of Collins Street and Swanston Street, has a concrete encased steel structure and is clad with moulded terra cotta faience. The overall effect is one of a modern commercial Gothic style. The structure is crowned with a corner tower of soaring, diminishing buttresses in a style presumed to be inspired by the Chicago Tribune Building, which received worldwide publicity when built in 1927.Within twelve months of commencement of work the Manchester Unity building was officially opened by the Premier of Victoria. By early May 1932 the sub-basement, basement and ground floors were ready for shopfitters and other finishing trades to move in. The remaining floors were added at the rate of one a week, and by late July 1932 the roof was laid and work started on the tower. Newspapers carried regular reports on the progress of the building, and a trip to the city to watch construction was a regular event for many Melbournians.The Manchester Unity building was the first in Victoria to have escalators. These provided access to the basement and the first floor directly from the main arcade entrance at Swanston Street. It was also one of the first Victorian buildings with automatic cooling, and rubbish and postal chutes on every floor. Australia's largest diesel generator, located in the sub-basement, provided an emergency power supply. Of the original lifts, two of the three have been converted to automatic operation but the beautiful inlaid timber and panelled interiors to the lift cars have been retained.The exterior facade is clad in biscuit coloured terra cotta faience. The faience is intricately moulded to produce continuous narrow columns and shafts rising up the facade, serving to emphasise the verticality of the building. The bulk of the building extends to 40.2metres, which was the height limit for central Melbourne at the time. Prominence is given to the corner by the tower, which soars above the main bulk. Towers were permitted to break the city's height limit as long as they did not contain occupiable rooms.Internally there is extensive use of various Australian marbles as cladding to the walls. The ground floor lobby ceiling and cornices have high-relief depictions of Aboriginals, Australian flora and fauna as well as transport, building and primary industries. Cornice plaster panels in the corridors of all the floors carry depictions of the friendly society's role in welfare provision.Located on the eleventh floor are the former offices and boardroom of Manchester Unity. They walls are decorated with sliced timber veneer panelling. The boardroom table was constructed in situ and is nearly six metres long. The top is finished with a rosewood veneer and rosewood inlay border, and a moulded and carved edge. Twelve monogrammed leather chairs also survive. It is likely that the table and chairs were also designed by Marcus Barlow's office, part of the total design of the building.How is it significant?The Manchester Unity Building is of architectural, historical, social, aesthetic and technical significance to the State of Victoria.Why is it significant?The Manchester Unity Building is architecturally significant as one ofthe tallest building in Melbourne when it was completed in 1932. The architectural styling, with its soaring vertical emphasis, was a daring break from the conservative palazzo architecture of the 1920s, which was typified by large and dominant cornices. The styling was complemented by the fashionable cladding material of glazed terra cotta faience. The modern commercial Gothic style of the Manchester Unity Building stands in contrast to the ecclesiastical Gothic of nearby St Paul's Cathedral. The building is architecturally significant as the greatest achievement of noted architect Marcus Barlow.The Manchester Unity Building is historically significant as the initiative that convinced Melbournians that the building slump caused by the Depression was almost over, such was the grand scale of the project and the speed at which building progressed. The fast building programme was controlled by the use of a works progress schedule, an innovation to the local building industry at the time.The Manchester Unity Building is socially significant as a landmark in both positioning and scale. It challenges, for scale and presence, the Melbourne Town Hall located opposite.The Manchester Unity Building is technically significant for the surviving original Otis-Waygood escalator between the ground floor lobby and mezzanine. The Manchester Unity Building was the first in Victoria to have escalators installed.The Manchester Unity Building is aesthetically significant for its intact interiors. The intricate plaster panel cornices and ceilings, the use of marble, and the inlays to the lift cars and sliced timber veneers in the boardroom all display a high standard of artistic workmanship that is without par for a building of this period. The boardroom table and chairs are historically and aesthetically significant. The survival of a boardroom table of this scale and grandeur from this period, complete with chairs, is unusual in Victoria. They formed part of the total design for the building..GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM_________________________________________NEWSPAPERS (TROVE)1932Traralgon Record (Traralgon, Vic. : 1886 - 1932)Monday 31 October 1932 - Page 2https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67515243MANCHESTER UNITY BUILDING. There is on view in Mr Ellis' window a fine model of the wonderful building erected by the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows at the corner of Collins and Swanston Sts. Melbourne. The new building which we had the pleasure of seeing through is almost complete and the ground and first floors, as well as the Arcade, are now occupied by various business houses. A feature of the new structure is the oscillating staircase, and thousands of people attend to have the experience of travelling with the new device. The decorative art employed is magnificent, and the beautiful marble walls etc., makes the building absolutely the best in the City..https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/242828582 illust.`IN the new Manchester Unity Building two escalators or moving staircases, the first in Melbourne, will be installed. One will be erected at the Swanston Street entrance to the building, and will con- vey passengers to the basement, while the other will be in the Central Arcade, and take people from the ground floor the shops on the first floor. Each escalator will have a width of three feet between balustrades, and will capable of carrying about 6000 passengers an hour. The speed of each escalator is 90 feet a minute, and the angle of incline is 30 degrees. ..'.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/242819937 illust statues`…Faith, Hope and Charity will be a feature of the new Manchester Unity building. This emblematical statuary will appear on both the Collins Street and Swanston Street facades, close to the corner entrance, and, being in ivory white, will stand out well against the mother-of-pearl glazed terra-cotta. Much work is involved in the completion of such a group of life-size figures. First a quarter scale model is completely finished in clay, and. after approval of detail has been given by the architect, the figures are modelled full- size in special modelling clay. Since the figures cannot be handled full-size in the kilns, and on account of the necessity of reproducing two or three sets, they are carefully cut into convenient sizes, from which plaster moulds are made. The individual pieces are then pressed in clay, dried, glazed, and burnt in the kiln to 2100 deg. Fahrenheit, after which they are closely fitted together, and are ready for set ting in place on the job. The modelling, to the design of the architect, Mr Marcus R. Barlow, is be- ing done at Wunderlich's terra-cotta factory, Sunshine, by Mr O. H. Dutton, sculptor, who carried out a considerable amount of work for the Shrine of Remembrance..The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954) Mon 12 Dec 1932 Page 18ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL LANDMARK FOR MELBOURNEhttps://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/243186449/26389557 illustGREAT NEW BUILDING TO BE OPENED TONIGHTManchester Unity's Headquarters Will Pass From Builders To PublicARCHITECTURAL TRIUMPH FOR CITYBy H. A. BRADSTREET .Tonight, at 8.15, the Premier (Sir Stanley Argyle) will open, | officially, the Manchester Unity's new building opposite the Town Hall. Beneath his hand, on the dinner-table, will be a switch. He will touch it. At once the glow of the floodlight will shine around the bronze tower. There, 210ft. above the level of the | street, will shine suddenly a light in the night, telling all men that this great building has passed from the architect and masons .j to the trustees of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows.NOMINALLY it will pass to the community for the good of the State. But observation suggests that this ultra-modern retail business temple will — pass, actually, to a predominantly feminine tenancy, to serve mainly the multifarious needs of womankind.This is not surprising. The beautiful > building, situated in the very centre of : the civic area, immediately opposite the Town Hall, is passed doily by a mil- : lion people. A count has shown that more than 20,000 pass through its cool arcades every day. It is the most convenient comer, for Melbourne's shoppers. j Who are Melbourne's shoppers? Mostly women.In the multitude of shops and kiosks and salons in this building, therefore, the catering is for women needs: : for articles of apparel and adornment, and rites for beauty's sake. There is a dancing teacher for both sexes, and there are tailors for men and women. A king could take Cophetua. in her rags, ; into this vast shrine, with its soft mother-of-pearl shell, and bring her forth arrayed in all the magnificence of the Queen of Sheba, fastidiously correct from the wave of her hair to the dainty shoes on her feetSOFT. DEEP; 310FT.HIGH Points to be made by the speakers to night in the cafe in the basement, about this ultra-modern house of business at the north-western corner of Swanston and Collins Street will read like excerpts from the pages of the book of civic pride. They will tell of how this structure Is rooted 50ft. deep in the earth and soars, to the top tower, 210ft. above the ground. For those who love precision they will explain that the building has a frontage to Swanston Street of 120 feet, to Collins Street of 64 feet, with a depth from Swanston Street to Howey Court of 85 feet. They will enumerate the sub- basement, >40 feet below the level of Collins Street contiguous with the flood- level of the Yarra. They will add that the building has a two-storeyed arcade, 10 storeys for offices and factories, and, above the lop floor, a roof-garden to resemble that decorated restaurant on the roof of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. It will be for the officers of the Order in Victoria to tell of how the Manchester Unity's trustees concluded the contract of sale with 'Mr Stewart Dawson. Mr Best, the Grand Secretary, went to Sydney in October, 1926, and duly paid to the proprietor the sum of £1 for the option on the famous block known as "Stewart Dawson's corner," at an all- in price of £250,000. They exercised that option within n month. Later they bought the adjoining land and premises of Messrs Lord and Kingston for £93,000, making the- total cost of the site of the new building £343,000, or an average of £2717 a foot. An amazing price for land that less than 100 years ago was virgin scrub, the haunt of the aborigine, the native birds and animals, land that had never seen a white man or woman. A MODERN MIRACLE it is typical of what the surprising white race has done in this continent in less .than 100 years, if among the blacks living 95 years ago there were a 'hp Van Winkle, and he awoke to visit the valley that is Swanston Street today, he would be convinced that either he was mad or still dreaming, else a whole host of miracles had happened during Ins stupor. They have happened. Even those who have known Melbourne for something akin to the allotted three years and ten are conscious of thrills when they contrast the memory of Nicholson's Tea and Coffee Palace, which not so long ago was on this site, with the magnificent edifice which to night posses to the Manchester Unity Orders trustees. The land purchased, plans were pre pared by Mr Marcus Barlow. He was told the trustees wanted the finest and up-to-date building ... In the Commonwealth.They have got it.The building contract was let to Walter E. Cooper Pty. Ltd. for £215,000. Mr Cooper was given possession of the old buildings in the instant of the birth of 1932. When the whistles blew to welcome the New Year at midnight, simultaneously there were signals on Stewart Dawson's premises, and the wreckers sprang to their feverish demolition. Mr Cooper not only constructed a building that is a monument to Australian thrift, enterprise and faith. He showed that Australia is abreast of the rest of the world when it comes to efficiency in the building business. In undertaking to demolish the old building and erect .this tall, spacious, splendidly-appointed corner edifice in 11 and a half months, he said, in effect, that his. firm could do the work as well as an y) of the international specialists ir New York, Paris, London and Berlin. Today his contract is done. Australians have done what visiting constructional specialists have said they would be proud to attempt to do.BASEMENT MACHINERYIn the sub-basement is a conglomeration of machinery as massive as that of : a great power-house. There is the first Diesel engine constructed wholly in the j Commonwealth, as a stand-by lighting and power plant But that is not the way to regard this hidden sanctuary is rather the sacristy of Athene Hygiene goddess of health. There is the incinerator to consume, in a moment, all the rubbish and refuse of the building fed automatically, from any room, through the chute. There is the air "humidifier"— an automatic air laundry that washes, purifies and controls the temperature of the fresh air fed every few minutes to every room in the building. In the basement is the cafe that tonight will hold its Inaugural function when the invited quests celebrate the opening of the building. Tomorrow it will be available for the refreshment of the multitude. Level with Collins and Swanston Streets is the ground arcade. It is as attractive as an art gallery. Its deco rated ceilings and marble panels tell in symbols and black and white designs as a summary of the splendid story of Modern Australia. There are nine shops set In there. Nine busy little bazaars, their wares as colorful and dainty as the treasures of the Mousky. Among them is a florist That is proper. For the bouquets In those cool windows seem the fighter notes in that symphony of color tint blends so soothingly just off the crowded, work- a-day footpaths…. Gearless Iifts serve the whole 14 floors, from sub-basement to roof garden, travelling from the street level to the summit in 14 seconds. They are beautiful little cubicles. They accelerate smoothly, stop without jar or vibration. Their bronze fittings and tan panels are miniature exhibits of the polished beauty that Australian finishers create from the nation's raw materials.100 SUITES OF OFFICESAn escalator, with 61 ever-moving steps runs gently, ceaselessly, through the hours, to the first floor arcade. A modern magic carpet, it transports 106 patrons a minute — 6000 an hour — to this lovely cloister on the mezzanine. This arcade is another appealing gallery, dup Heating the richness, taste and finish of the bazaar below on the ground- level, In this section, like a treasure- house ill n palace, there are 13 shops and kiosks gleaming in the dimmed light of day, or glowing in radiance from concealed gold-tinted bulbs. Some their wares have come in ships from across the seas. But, such is the development of Australian manufactures most of them are home-made products, every whit as true in quality, appearance and appeal as the imported merchandiseOn the next 10 storey there are 100 suites of offices and several factories. Ruberoid deadens the sound of footsteps on these acres. Solid gypsum blocks segregate from each suite the noises of its neighbors. On the lower floors the- are vast double-windows, filtering the light, but shutting out utterly the noises of the city. Thick walls as white as snow have, as a high dado, a line of ventilators. Through these apertures streams always the now air from the sub-basement: air purer than the atmosphere of the streets. In it is no dust nor oppressive heat, neither filth nor odours. Its temperature is regulated always to the ideal mean for human comfort. There is the warmth of the hearth in the days when outside the weather is depressing and bleak. In the summer, when in the streets the air is stifling, within these walls there is a grateful coolness, that men and women, youths and girls in office and koisk, factory and shop, may be kept energetic and fresh.MODEL OF HYGIENEIn each wall, in every room, shoulder- high, are two chutes. One is for the mail, tho other for refuse. Hygiene, happily. Is one of Australia's household gods. Neither rubbish nor refuse, soiled clothes nor luncheon fragments, spoiled paper, nor any of the litter of the market- place, need blemish floor or table or nook of this temple. The incinerator has a .maw in every wall. In each room, too, are the taps of hot and cold water. On the eleventh storey is what is claimed to be the finest office in the Southern Hemisphere. I stood in it today, with its overlord, Mr W. H. Best. Across Swanston Street, actually below us, was the Town Hall clock. In the distance to the north were the heights of Macedon. We were contemporary with the tower of the City Fire Brigade, the dome of the Exhibition Building, the spires of St. Paul's. Far away below us, like a grey path swarming with dwarfs, was the ribbon of Swanston Street, widening across Princes Bridge to the magnificent avenue that is St. Kilda Road. The central, shining tram-tracks seemed to converge to the very base of the white Shrine. 1 In that altitude no sound distracted us. Humanity went its ways, remote. We were alone in an eyrie, our sight swooping for miles upon miles, over mountain and bay, over Melbourne buildings worth millions and millions. The building in which we stood cost the Manchester Unity Society just on £600,000, ,DANCING ON THE ROOFAcross the Yarra, a thin strip like the Suez Canal, were the Botanic Gardens. It was not hard to see in them something of the unadorned site of Melbourne as it was in 1532. Now, in 1932, from 130ft. high, is a new man-made city. Counting its worth in intrinsic measure, a few millions of sterling are lost in the total. That was Melbourne in perspective from this eyrie opposite to and higher than the Town Hall. Higher still is the roof-garden. At last Melbourne will have something of that series of verandah and semi-open- air cafes so popular in the northern hemisphere. Great glass panels will line the sides, free to open to the sky on sunny days, cosy bulwarks when the wind is strong and the rain beats. A corner of the roof-cafe has been set with smooth tiles for dancing. Here will be a green retreat with something of the artistry of Continental cafe life. This, then, is the building that tonight will be opened to the public by the Premier. It will house up to 3000 employes in ideal conditions. Mr Best said: "It Is a dream come true. This village began in 1835. Our order was established here in 1840. Nearly 70 years ago our earnest, prudent predecessors built an up-to-date office in Swanston Street, opposite the site of the Public Library. Our building then was one of the landmarks of the metro polis. It was an early gesture of faith in the future of Victoria. Years passed, and our members— men who are in receipt of little, perhaps £3, £4, £5, £6 a week— have, by their thrift, saved millions of pounds. Most of it has gone back to them— we have more than 28,000 members today— as sick pay, money for medical attention and medicines, funeral benefits, and the like. But we have saved £1.350.000.EMPLOYMENT FOR 1500“When we bought this site and were about to give the contract to the builders, the depression set in. There was time for us still to draw back, to hesitate, to delay. But we have a heritage. We should have been unworthy of it, of the control of our great resources, if we had missed that opportunity. Scores of eager men and' women sought work everywhere. "On this building alone was work for 1500 hands. There was employment for another 1500 or 2000 in the allied trades in the building industry consequent on this contract. We did not hesitate. "Today the building is finished. Our dream has come true. We are confident we have done the right thing. We believe that we shall receive from life and the Commonwealth something approximate to that which we give. We have given our best . . . The Order has given Melbourne its best retail business building to date. More than that. It has given Melbourne a beautiful building._________________________________________
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| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 109267 | 1 PDF : 6,645 KB ; A4 | Group of Items (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |