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Kodak House, 252 Collins Street, Melbourne

Butler, Graeme1985

Record details

Title:

Creator:

Butler, Graeme (Name details)

Date of work:

1985

Reference number:

BIF-CITY 102145

Level of description:

Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)

Type of materials:

Graphic materialsTextual material

Part of:

Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)

Access restrictions:

UnrestrictedOpen access.

Use restrictions:

UnrestrictedPlease contact City of Melbourne Libraries about obtaining permission to reproduce images.

General notes:

Period: Inter-WarConstruction date: 1934-1935Notable features/significance: 1. Use of stainless steel spandrels - 1st in City. 2. Use of terracotta paling and geometric form..ASSOCIATED RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER:.GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYStatement of SignificanceHistoryAmerican inventor, George Eastman, introduced roll film in 1884 and four years later the world's first Kodak camera. In Melbourne, the national photographic manufacturers and importers, Baker and Rouse Proprietary Ltd., offered Kodak's `Pocket' Camera and the `Bull's Eye' camera range from premises at 260 Collins Street (Australia Hotel site). By 1908 the Eastman Kodak Company (USA) amalgamated with their Australian distributor to create Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, using Baker and Rouse's Abbotsford Austral Works as a manufacturing base. It was here that, after the establishment of a research laboratory in 1930, colour film was processed for the first time in Australia (1936). Monochrome panchromatic films were also developed here. This plant was eventually to move to Coburg in 1961.As part of Kodak's 1930s expansion, Oakley and Parkes designed a new shop and offices for a site to the east of their previous premises, commencing late in 1934. South-facing and narrow facades were always a challenge, among architects, to achieve the maximum natural light penetration over the long floor plans. Kodak's facade achieved a good proportion of glass by adoption of a stainless steel framed curtain wall within the Moderne facade frame. The spandrels were also of polished and shaped stainless steel, claimed as the first use of the material on a Melbourne building. The adjoining Lyric House shows how different the solution was to this lighting problem only four years previously. Buckley and Nunn's Men's Store had achieved a similarly all-metal framed curtain wall in 1933 but not in stainless steel and not in the manner of Kodak which was a prophecy of the typical curtain wall framing of twenty years time.Moderne-ism carried throughout the interior in the `horizontal' manner, including the archetypical Queensland walnut panelling and chrome stripping to fitments. Balmoral granite faced the ground level, as a gesture to tradition, and glass show cases on layered marble plinths, provided the slip stream needed on either side of the entry. A mezzanine display area extended off the selling floor and the basement was a good place for a dark room, projection room and the Kodascope Library. Kodak also occupied the first and second floors but the uppermost four offered small offices and personal services. The timeless Radio Rental Company and La Florence ladies hairdressing were two.DescriptionResembling the earlier Moderne designs of Buckley and Nunn and Newspaper House(qv), the essence of a framing portal, encasing a vertical glazing unit, was continued here. The popular and economical terra cotta faience easily clad the simple and symmetrical geometric shapes favoured by the style, and matched in durability the stainless steel spandrels and mullions. `K' medallions still ornament the `capitals' of the fluted pilasters but the broad parapet (like Barnett's Building and Buckley and Nunn's) has been denuded of its giant metal `Kodak House' lettering.External IntegrityThe building name has been removed, the shopfronts replaced in a similar layout and framing material and a `sympathetically' designed canopy added. The interior ground-level has been refitted.StreetscapeMatching and terminating the general vertical fenestration emphasis commenced at the Swanston Street by the Manchester Unity Building.SignificanceThe third Moderne design in the city, the first city facade to use stainless steel and the first to use a combined spandrel and framing system, set within vertical mullions. The building was possibly the first major construction by the new Kodak (Australasia) firm and it exemplifies a time of expansion within what is now a major national manufacturer..GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites GRAEME BUTLER 1982-3, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS (VIC) 20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE SURVEY and 20th CENTURY BUILDINGS REGISTER ;Victoria Illustrated: 157;.HERITAGE BRANCH, MINISTRY FOR PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT 1987 CITY OF MELBOURNE CENTRAL CITY NOTABLE BUILDINGS CITATIONSKodak House was built in 1934-5 for Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd as the company's Melbourne headquarters, 26 years after its formation in Australia. It was designed by architects Oakley and Parkes and is one of the earliest examples of "moderne" design in Melbourne. It was the first building in the city to use stainless steel in its external cladding and its curtain-wall framing system was a precursor of later modernist buildings..National Trust of Australia (Vic)Classification extends to facade only and the subsequent ground floor alterations are excluded. Statement of significance: A seven storey showroom and office building of 1934/35 by architects Oakley & Parkes; notable for its early use of spandrel stainless steel panels in its facade which represent a departure from the forms of classically derived styles developed in the decade prior to the Second World War and a significant technical innovation.Classified: 09/02/1978.NEWSPAPERS (TROVE)The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954)Tuesday 27 August 1935 - Page 15, illust.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203984652KODAK HOUSE.New Note in Designing.A new departure in designs for commercial structures may be discerned in the facade of the new premises erected in The Block for Kodak (A'asia) Pty. In no other building in the city is stainless steel been used so elaborately in conjunction with other materials, the introduction of windows and spandrels of this metal conveying a fleeting impression of marine architecture. Apart from the prevailing tendency to rely for architectural expression on new forms, the application of coloured veneers or facings to elevations now influenced very largely by the aspect. Where the building faces to the south, as in the case of Kodak House, absence of sunlight is compensated for by the provision of brighter surfaces, usually completed in natural or synthetic stone, `faience' or terra cotta.Attractive features are the lift lobby and staircase at the Collins-street entrance. These were lined with Cudgewa marble in horizontal bands, with finish to match the interior of the shopping portion, the walls of which were panelled up to a height of about 8 feet in Queensland walnut. The grain of the wood, it may be noted, runs horizontally also, and the panelling has set bands of narrow chromium-plated strips and flushed black leads. Above the panelling the same horizontal treatment is continued by a series of grooves which follow the contour of the wall, tad bands rising tp the ceiling, which i stepped up in a succession of gradated lines. The Collins-street section of the basement will be used as a Cine-Kodak show- in, and in it there is a small dark-room and a well-equipped Kodascope laboratory. Double doors connect the showrooms to a large projection room, which will be available for demonstrations and private views of films. The whole of the second floor was allotted for office accommodation and travellers' rooms, and space was reserved on the third, fifth and sixth floors for tenants.The opening of the building for business yesterday marked an. important stage in the growth of the concern, which was established by the late Mr. Thomas Baker and Mr. J, J. Rouse, who is the present chairman of directors. The aptly-named garden factory of the firm at Abbotsford was first opened about fifty years ago, and provides employment for 500 hands, the floor space being 250,000 square feet. Messrs. Oakley and Parkes, of Bourke-street, were the architects …and the builders TR and L Cockram Pty Ltd.

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City of Melbourne

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