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Stock Exchange House, 351-357 Collins Street, Melbourne

Butler, Graeme1985

Record details

Title:

Creator:

Butler, Graeme (Name details)

Date of work:

1985

Reference number:

BIF-CITY 102091

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: Post-WarConstruction date: 1965-1968Materials: Precast concrete façadeNotable features: Citation in Urban Category, Victorian Architects Award 1969Architects: Buchan Laird and Buchan Pty Ltd.ASSOCIATED RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER:.GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYStatement of SignificanceHistoryLike much of Melbourne's early development, the Melbourne Stock Exchange grew most rapidly under gold's influence. The capital and hence the companies needed to extract the still hidden deep alluvial leads were pressing from the late 1850s but it was the quartz mining boom, from the mid 1860s, which caused the formation of the Melbourne Stock Exchange (1865) as a reformation of the Stock Exchange of Melbourne in 1884. Three years later they commenced building 360-374 Collins Street which, when complete in 1891, allowed the public to gaze upon the exchange in progress for the first time. More sober premises were acquired at 422 Little Collins Street in 1925, in time for the peak of the world recession in 1929.Another type of mineral boom (gas, oil, copper and nickel) during the 1960s, fuelled another leap for the exchange. Overseas capital and consequent boom trading created the right climate for erection of this new office building, near to opposite the exchange of 1891. Their architects were the Geelong firm of Buchan Laird and Buchan Pty. Ltd. and the builders, Hansen and Yuncken Pty. Ltd.The new stock exchange was also seen as the new direction in city commercial architecture. Pre-cast concrete was not only a new material for the window grids of the new rationalist order but an entirely new look. Glass facades which approached the idealised transparency at Gilbert Court (qv) were now discarded for an opaque `skin' which obscured the building's structural grid, supplanting it with a secondary module based on internal office division. Once again the proportion of openings in a masonry wall would become the designer's concern. So too was the use of stone, an indicator of the owner's wealth: the Stock Exchange chose a veneer of reconstructed Harcourt granite.The Stock Exchange was at the back, in a low-rise (9-storey) post-tensioned concrete structure which allowed a 9000 square feet (900 square metres) column-free trading floor, 3 storeys high. ANZ Bank headquarters was in a more conventional but 26 storey structure at the front. A forecourt plaza gave extra storeys to the tower and allowed it to avoid side-long confrontation with its older neighbours. Stock Exchange House did not win a medal in the 1969 RAIA Victorian Architectural Awards, gaining instead a citation in the urban category.DescriptionFrom before the Victorian period revival styles, commercial office designs have offered a lofty impressive ground level to the public and prospective lessors. Stock Exchange House is no exception, propping the layered concrete facade above, upon stilt-like columns, forming openings which only vaguely relate to the regimented windows above it. The award-winning Royal Insurance Building (1962-5) had already set the pattern to which the Stock Exchange Building would add three years later. Both buildings fell into Cross-Section's `cool school' of city buildings, with their mannerless bland facades.External IntegrityGenerally externally original.StreetscapeSet-back but related to its western neighbour.SignificanceConservative but accomplished design in the new precast concrete era of city architecture. Also a citation winner in the state's architectural awards..GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYcites GRAEME BUTLER 1982-3, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS (VIC) 20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE SURVEY and 20th CENTURY BUILDINGS REGISTER

Names:

City of MelbourneBuchan Laird & Buchan Pty Ltd, 1936-1962

Topics:

Central Activities District Conservation Study 1985Conservation studiesPostwar periodModerne style1960-1969Stock exchanges

Places:

Melbourne (Vic.)

Form/Genre:

Building Identification Forms (BIFs)

Record types:

Research and reports

Record number:

1192880