National Bank of Australia Stock Exchange Branch, 85-91 Queen Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Total copies: 1
Title:
National Bank of Australia Stock Exchange Branch, 85-91 Queen Street, Melbourne
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Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 108064
Level of description:
Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
Type of materials:
Graphic materialsTextual material
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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UnrestrictedOpen access.
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UnrestrictedPlease contact City of Melbourne Libraries about obtaining permission to reproduce images.
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2022:__________________________________________________DATE: 1971-3;ASSOCIATIONS: National Bank of Australia;DESIGNER: Meldrum & PartnersNotable features: Noted as early 'plastic' modelling of tower cladding (precast concrete) ie. curved corners..CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEWStatement of SignificanceWhat is significant?The Former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch at 85-91 Queen Street, Melbourne, completed to a design by Meldrum and Partners in 1973, is significant.Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):· Original building form and scale;· Original nonloadbearing precast concrete curtain wall cladding including recessed window openings to its principal (Queen Street) façade;· Original nonloadbearing curtain walls to its secondary facades facing Austral Lane and the rear of 394 Collins Street; and· Original aluminium frame windows set deep into the panels.Later alterations, particularly at street level, are not significant.How it is significant?The Former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch at 85-91 Queen Street is of historical and representative significance to the City of Melbourne.Why it is significant?The former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch building, opened in 1973 and designed by Meldrum & Partners, is historically significant as evidence of the postwar development and rapid growth of corporate architecture of the 1950s-1970s that reflected the expansion of large national and international companies opting for construction and naming rights of new city office buildings as a form of promotion and fund investment. Located in the financial and commercial precinct of Queen Street, the former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch building is significant historically as it reflects the growth of banks in Victoria following deregulation of the financial sector from the mid-1960s, cementing Melbourne's pre-eminent role for financial institutions. (Criterion A)The former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch building is significant as a highly intact example of postwar commercial development in central Melbourne that utilised the Post-War Modernist style, which characterised this wave of development. These buildings represented the new modernism in their modular, industrial, Bauhaus inspired aesthetic incorporating features such as consistent access to daylight and open floor plans to meet new standards for commercial office accommodation. The former National Bank of Australasia Stock Exchange Branch is a substantial example of the later development in curtain wall design during the 1960s and into the 1970s and beyond when precast concrete was used to create moulded and curved façade modules incorporating window openings while maintaining the rigid modular Bauhaus inspired aesthetic. The building retains its original form and scale, as well as the key characteristics of its original design, including the distinctive free form or organic nonloadbearing precast concrete panels as the principal façade element. The western and southern elevations are highly intact retaining original structural precast concrete mullions, spandrel panels clad in face brick inlay panels below fixed windows with projecting precast concrete sills and ground level detailing to the western façade, and the same applied spandrel panels and precast concrete sills to the southern facade. (Criterion D)Primary sourceHoddle Grid Heritage Review (Context & GJM Heritage, 2020).GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM - noted as early `plastic' modelling of tower cladding (precast concrete) ie curved corners_________________________________________City of Melbourne online maps 2016A ten storey concrete office building with a basement. Built in 1972._________________________________________CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEWSITE HISTORYThe subject land at 85-91 Queen Street is part of Crown Allotments 8 and 9, Block 14, purchased by James Connell in 1837 (‘Town of Melbourne’ 1838). In 1880 the land comprised two allotments with a laneway at the southern property boundary, and was occupied by two three-storey office buildings addressed as 35 and 37 Queen Street (Mahlstedt Map, no14, 1888). By 1895 the southern building was addressed as 85 or 87 Queen Street and the northern as 89-91 Queen Street (MMBW Detail Plan no 1011, 1895).From the turn of the twentieth century, a series of trustee, insurance and other professional services companies occupied the office buildings. The Equity Trustees, Executors and Agency Company Limited occupied purpose-built premises at 85 Queen Street from c1901 to 1956, with the building known as the Equity Trustees building during this time (Argus 26 March 1956:12; Royal Institute of Architects Journal November 1905:169; S&Mc 1900-1955). From 1955, the building at 85-87 Queen Street was known as Insurance House (Figure 1) (S&Mc 1955). By 1960 the National Bank ofAustralasia had moved into the building, trading from the premises along with consulting engineers, estate agents and auctioneers (S&Mc 1960).By 1910 and until 1924, the Perpetual Trustees Company operated from 89-91 Queen Street (Mahlstedt Map Section 1, no 17, 1910; S&Mc 1924). The Australian Metropolitan Life Assurance Company Limited took up residency in the following year, and remained there until at least 1965. The building was known as the Metropolitan Building from 1925 until the 1970s (Figure 1) (S&Mc 1924, 19).Figure 1. Detail from a c1950-60 photograph of the western side of Queen Street, showing Insurance House (left) and the Metropolitan Building (right). These buildings predated the subject building on the site of 85-91 Queen Street. (Source: Pratt c1950-60, SLV copyright)In 1971 a permit application was lodged with Melbourne City Council to construct an ‘11-storey office building’ on the site of the existing bank and office building at 85-91 Queen Street (MBAI 42401). Plans were drawn up by architects Meldrum & Partners for NBA Properties, a subsidiary company of the National Bank of Australasia to whom the land was transferred in 1972 (CT:V8945 F296).The National Bank of Australasia began commercial operations in Queen Street, Melbourne, in 1858. They became the National Bank of Australasia Limited on 1893, registered under the Victorian Companies Act 1890. The National Bank of Australasia merged with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in 1982 to form the National Australia Bank (NAB) (Merrett 2008). Along with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation and the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, the NAB has become one of the Australia’s four major banks. NBA Properties Limited was established in 1965 as a subsidiary company of the National Bank of Australasia. Its main purpose was to acquire and redevelop sites throughout Australia to house the bank’s branches (Age 18 January 1966:9; Age 16 November 1972:16). The bank owned and occupied 85-91 Queen Street from 1972-73 to c1998.By December 1973 the subject building had been completed, as a 10-storey building with basement level. Located opposite the stock exchange at the corner of Collins and Queen streets, the subject building was named the Stock Exchange Branch of the National Bank of Australasia (Figure 2) (Age 22 December 1973:16).Figure 2. A c1972 photograph showing 85-91 Queen Street (right) under construction. (Source: Halla c1972, SLV copyright)In 1982 the National Bank of Australasia merged with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney to become the National Australia Bank (NAB). The National Australia Bank remained as the building’s major tenant until at least 1998 (Age 16 September 1998:30; Merrett 2008). Other tenants during this period included commercial real estate agents Allard and Shelton (c1980-c1992), the Southern Australian Perpetual Forests Limited, and various solicitors (Age 3 December 1980:26; 14 November 1992:92; 26 March 1998:37).Changes to the building since its construction have been largely confined to the interior spaces, with the regular alteration of the internal configuration of all floors since 1974 (MBAI). In 1992 the ground level foyer was refurbished at a cost of $636,250, and in 2002 alterations included extending the first floor and refurbishing the ground floor façade (see Figure 3) (MBAI 70931; CoMMaps).Today, the ground floor of the subject building comprises retail, while the upper levels house commercial offices and consulting rooms for professional services companies, education and training providers and health professionals (CoMMaps).Figure 3. A 1998 photograph shows the building prior to its refurbishment in 2002, which saw the first floor extended to the building line and glazed. In the above image, the first floor is clearly recessed beneath the upper levels and the double height street level under-croft and colonnade is clearly intact. (Source: Age 16 September 1998:30)Meldrum & Partners, architectsThe architectural practice Meldrum & Partners was formed in 1959 by Percy Hayman Meldrum (1887-1968); it became Meldrum Burrows when Sydney-based Bill Burrows joined the firm. In 1951, Meldrum was joined in practice by his son, Richard John Meldrum (1928-2004), who had a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Melbourne. Meldrum Snr retired from practice in 1965. Meldrum Burrows gained particular prominence in the 1970s and 1980s and were involved in advising on and strategic planning for, large projects, including the Australian Embassy at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (1989) in collaboration with Daryl Jackson, and with Philip Cox in designing Parliament House, Darwin (Willis 2012).Percy Hayman Meldrum studied at Ballarat College and was articled to A A Fritsch from 1907 to 1913. Moving to London in 1914, Meldrum practiced as an aircraft designer at the War Office and established an atelier in Wells Street, London, which became a gathering place for Australian architects engaged in war service. At the end of World War One Meldrum joined the staff of the Architectural Association, where he taught A G Stephenson and Donald Turner. In 1921, he returned to Australia to join A G Stephenson as Stephenson & Meldrum. Practising as principal designer, he strongly encouraged the inclusion of murals and sculpture in the firm’s projects. His work during this time included Newspaper House, Collins Street (1932) and Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historic Museum (1930). Meldrum went on to practice as Meldrum & Noad between 1937 and the 1950s, during which time he won the 1942 RVIA Street Architecture Medal for the National Bank of Australasia building in Collins Street (1938) (Willis 2012).REFERENCESContextual History references contained within City of Melbourne Hoddle Grid Heritage Review: Postwar Thematic Environmental History 1945-1975Age, as cited.Argus, as cited.Clinch, R J 2012, ‘The places we keep: the heritage studies of Victoria and outcomes for urban planners’, PhD thesis, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne.Halla, KJ c1972, ‘Queen Street, Melbourne, Vic.’, State Library Victoria (SLV) Photographic Collection H36133/613, accessed online 29 April 2019.Land Victoria, Certificates of Title (CT), as cited.Lewis, Miles 2012, The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, Cambridge University Press, New York.Mahlstedt and Gee 1888, Standard plans of the city of Melbourne, Mahlstedt and Gee, Melbourne.Mahlstedt, G 1910, Index to City of Melbourne detail fire survey Section 1, Mahlstedt, Melbourne.Marsden, Susan 2000, Urban Heritage: the rise and postwar development of Australia’s capital city centres, Australian Council of National Trusts and Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra.Melbourne Building Application Index (MBAI), retrieved from Ancestry.com 2015, Victoria, Australia, Selected Trial Brief and Correspondence Registers and Other Images, 1837-1993 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com.au, accessed online March-April 2018.Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) Detail Plan, as cited, State Library of Victoria.Merrett, DT 2008, ‘Banking and Finance’ eMelbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, http://www.emelbourne.net.au/, accessed 29 April 2019.National Trust 2014, Melbourne’s Marvellous Modernism: A Comparative Analysis of Post-War Modern Architecture in Melbourne’s CBD 1955-1975, East Melbourne, National Trust.Pratt, Charles c1950-60, ‘Aerial view of the central business district of Melbourne, at the intersection of Queen and Little Collins Streets’, State Library of Victoria (SLV) Airspy collection: photographs H2008.32/59 , accessed online 29 April 2019.Royal Institute of Architects Journal, as cited.Sands & McDougall, Melbourne and Suburban Directories (S&Mc), as cited.Sievers, Wolfgang 1970, ‘Gypsum House, 350 La Trobe Street, Melbourne’, State Library Victoria (SLV) Photographic Collection H99.50/28, accessed online 29 April 2019. – copyrightStorey, Rohan 2008, ‘Skyscrapers’, eMelbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, http://www.emelbourne.net.au, accessed 7 April 2019.Willis, Julie ‘Percy Meldrum’, in Goad, Philip & Willis Julie (eds.) 20
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| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 108064 | 1 JPEG : 547 KB ; A4 | Single Item (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |