Pawson House 141-143 (labelled 137-143), Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme103930
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Pawson House 141-143 (labelled 137-143), Flinders Lane, Melbourne
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103930
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BIF-CITY 103930
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Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2021:Period: Inter-WarDATE: 1935;ASSOCIATIONS: Pawson & Co;DESIGNERS: Tompkins, HW & FB;IMAGE: https://flic.kr/p/2mf1ah2.GRAEME BUTLER & ASSOCIATES 2011, CENTRAL CITY (HODDLE GRID) HERITAGE REVIEWStatement of SignificanceWhat is significant?Pawson House was erected for clothing manufacturers Pawson and Company in 1935 to the design of the prolific commercial architects, HW & FB Tompkins, for an estimated costs of ₤9000. Built of reinforced concrete its structure was designed by the pioneering reinforced concrete engineer, HR Crawford. In 1935 it was promoted as `...This splendid building is the last word in modern construction perfect natural light central heating and hot water service. Floors 2400 sq ft or subdivide to suit tenants'.Typical of this part of Flinders Lane, the tenants were mainly from the clothing industry with, for example, Alexander Eastaugh and Co Pty Ltd, manufacturing specialists in hosiery, underwear, and knitwear announcing in 1938 that it would take over the entire plant floor space and fittings and fixtures of Pawson and Co to manufacture specials and as a finishing plant for the company's Romney mills and that showrooms would be located at Pawson House. This was because of the expanding demand for their products. Other occupiers included various art flower and clothing manufacturers such as Hollywood Modes, and their agents.Initially planned as four floors above ground and basement, a floor was added during construction. Inside, the three upper levels were originally planned as factory spaces and the three lower, as showrooms. A small entry lobby was served by the stair and a lift, repeated at the escape stair at the other end of the building onto Oliver Lane.The building façade is composed of vertical elements with recessed panels for windows, each panel divided vertically by a rib. Windows either side are a vertical multi-pane glazing format, with grooved spandrels between. At the parapet the recessed panels cascade into Moderne style moulded and bifurcated facets, set in fours either side of the central rib. The elevation reverts to plain walls and steel framed windows down the side lane after one return façade bay . The entry has a terra-cotta tiled surround with the street number set into a recessed panel. A fluted pressed cement frieze with a central keystone marks the stylised termination of the façade panel above which traces the path of the stair well up the building, lit by a continuous metal-framed and glazed slit. The double polished timber entry doors have been replaced with a glazed screen. A flagpole once adorned the parapet at the crown of this panel. The simple Moderne treatment used here is another example of the preamble to Modernism in Melbourne commercial building.How is it significant?Pawson House is historically and aesthetically to the Melbourne Capital City ZoneWhy is it significant?Pawson House is a well-preserved factory warehouse that symbolises historically the dominance of this part of Melbourne by clothing manufactures since the late Victorian-era. Aesthetically it is a well-preserved example of a Modern style by the prominent commercial architects, the Tompkins Brothers..GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM.CITY OF MELBOURNE BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATIONSBuilding Permit Application 1935, 16250 14/4/1935 `erection of building..' ₤9,000: `new Building of concrete construction … for Pawson & Co HR Crawford engineer- see images held. Show added storey 1935 10/7.NEWSPAPERS (TROVE)`The Argus': Saturday 31 August 1935`PAWSON HOUSEFLINDERS LANEThis splendid building is the last word in modern construction perfect natural light central heating and hot water service. Floors 2400 sq ft or subdivide to suit tenants'7 June 1938:ALEXANDER EASTAUGHBecause of the expanding demand for the products of Alexander Eastaugh and Co Pty Ltd, manufacturing specialists in hosiery, underwear, and knitwear, the company has taken over the entire plant floor space and fittings and fixtures of Pawson and Co 137-139 Flinders lane. Directors of Alexander Eastaugh and Co L announce that all this plant and floor space will be used in the manufacture of specials and as a finishing plant for the company's Romney -mills Showrooms will be «located as usual at Pawson House, 141-143 Flinders lane '.Andrew May, eMelbourne(Monash University, Encyclopedia for Melbourne)`Flinders LaneOne of Melbourne's most important business centres, Flinders Lane runs east-west from Spring to Spencer streets. The name Flinders Lane, which varied from the nomenclature of Melbourne's other little streets, was officially gazetted in 1843. For much of its history, however, 'Flinders Lane' and 'Little Flinders Street' have both appeared on maps and business letterheads as alternative versions. Melbourne City Council street nameplates indicated 'Little Flinders Street' at least until the 1930s, but a council resolution in 1948 reaffirmed the official name as Flinders Lane. More generally known as simply 'the Lane', in its late 19th-century heyday it was renowned as the centre of Melbourne's wholesale (and especially soft-goods) trade.The lane, as laid down in Hoddle's 1837 grid, roughly followed the course of one of the settlement's first rough tracks. Through the 1840s it was notorious as an often muddy, rutted and scarcely passable passage. By the 1860s, as its swamps were filled in, and as its proximity to the wharf encouraged the construction of warehouses and showrooms, the street gained a reputation as a busy and important thoroughfare, the chosen location of mercantile houses, importers, brewers, timber yards and wholesalers. As one of the city's narrowest streets, Flinders Lane and its network of side lanes and alleys bustled with traffic and were commonly congested with travellers' buggies backed into shops, or by the lifting or lowering of boxes, sacks and other heavy goods.Most of its bluestone warehouses have now been demolished, some replaced by hotels or car parks. They were exemplified by the New Zealand Loan Wool store, built in 1882 at 546 Flinders Lane, backing the firm's offices on Collins Street. The imposing six-storey warehouse section had massive load-bearing walls, floor-to-floor bale chutes and a sawtooth glazed clear span roof. By the 1890s Flinders Lane's palatial emporiums and multi-storey warehouses gave it a canyon-like appearance, and some of its well-known premises included the warehouses and factories of the Denton Hat Mills, Beath, Schiess & Co. (clothing), W. McNaughton, Love & Co. (soft goods), Borsdorff & Co. (corsets and hosiery), W. Detmold (stationer), Melbourne Chilled Butter & Produce Co. Ltd, Felton, Grimwade & Co. (wholesale druggists and manufacturers), Sargood's, and Paterson, Laing & Bruce. From Spring to Queen streets, clothing warehouses, manufacturers, mill suppliers, button-and belt-makers, and clothes designers made the lane the centre of fashion, an industry pioneered by Jewish immigrant families such as Slutzkin, Blashki, Merkel, Haskin, Mollard and Trevaskis.In the 1920s, the growth of specialty houses saw retailers increasingly importing their own goods. Property values rose as ground floor frontages were given over to shops (costumier, tailoring, luxury goods), with soft-goods merchants retreating to the upper floors. Problems with space and parking forced the rag trade into decline from the 1960s. The former Port Authority Building (1929) at the corner of Market Street is a link to the area's maritime and mercantile past, while the old Western Market boasted great low colonnaded façades with remarkable bluestone catacombs, once entered from the lane.Andrew MayReferencesSalter, Robert, 'Flinders Lane … memory lane', Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, vol. 10, no. 7, 1989, pp. 583-9'.Wikipedia 2011:Flinders Lane, MelbourneFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia`Flinders Lane, heart of the schmatte business - Jews in the Australian garment trade.For a large part of the twentieth century, the garment trade was an important industry in the southern Australian state of Victoria. Since clothing was a big part of the country’s manufacturing, the Jews of the garment trade, initially migrants or refugees post WWII, made a large contribution to Australia’s economy. This multi-faceted industry, located in Flinders Lane, Melbourne and expanding during the interwar years, had its own economic and social history, gorgeous products, and vibrant life and camaraderie at its heart.In the 1880s, big softgoods-importing warehouses established Flinders Lane in the central business district of the Victorian capital, Melbourne, as the heart of the trade, because of the Lane’s proximity to wharves and railway stations, and its centrality to Melbourne’s population. These warehouses, which dominated the Flinders Lane trade for the first two decades of the twentieth century, were not Jewish. A notable exception was the underclothing business of Lazar Slutzkin, probably the first Jewish clothing manufacturer in Melbourne.Lazar Slutzkin arrived in 1893 from Russia. About the turn of the century, he opened a warehouse making and selling ladies’ white underwear. No ready-to-wear garments had been produced in real quantity before this; most goods were imported by warehouses. Lazar’s brother Sholem joined him in the business and eventually took over when Lazar retired. Both brothers were very religious; twice daily the business came to a standstill when they and their staff, consisting of fellow Jewish migrants, stopped for morning and afternoon prayers. ‘Makers-up’ (or ‘maker-uppers’) were not given material on Fridays lest they work on Shabbat.Much of the early Jewishness of Flinders Lane was due to Slutzkin, as he employed so many Jewish newcomers to Melbourne and doled out generous advice when they wanted to set up their own businesses.For over a hundred years ‘The Lane’ was an Australian institution. Through boom and bust fortunes were made and lost. Well known fashion houses like Henry Haskin, (who won Melbourne's Gown of the Year two years running) Charlotte of Fifth Avenue, Cherry Lane, Hartnell, and Saba flourished and fell, and characters larger than life wheeled and dealed in this little street that was the home and heart of Australian fashion manufacturing.Large and small factories, Jewish retailers and especially woollen mills also existed outside Flinders Lane and indeed all around country Victoria. In the 1940s the government encouraged decentralisation and in the boom years between 1945 and 1960 when migrants created such a huge demand, it was easy to get workers in the country plants, which trained completely inexperienced country workers. So whilst the trade was not limited to Flinders Lane, the Lane still had many advantages. It was close to shops, department stores, transport terminals, and financial institutions, to suppliers, to the labour pool and the potential market. Buyers could come from the country and ‘do’ the Lane in one session; ‘comparison buying’ was important: they needed to survey the scene, and then backtrack to place orders.For the manufacturers there was easy communication with rival firms. They could keep up with market trends and sometimes help with urgent orders – in this there was reciprocity of favours. And importantly, the ancillary services were within walking distance: pressers, machine importers, embroiderers, button coverers, and so on.With modern fabrics and modern manufacturing processes, it was a glamorous industry, but over the years the Lane hardly changed physically, and the conditions were far from glamorous. The decrepit buildings housed rats that ate the sequins off the garments. The vermin came from the wharves, and fox terriers were used to chase them between floors. With no air-conditioning it was hot in summer and cold in winter; open radiators to relieve the cold combined with the new, flammable materials and caused fires. No-one is willing to say to what degree fires and financial trouble went together. What they have said is that the manufacturer was always under-capitalised and took big risks, so that between the 1950s and the 1970s, there were plenty of bankruptcies with many fires starting at night or on weekends.'.DIRECTORIES OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE-SANDS AND KENNY, SANDS & MCDOUGALL(1920 alphabetical: no Pawson & Co)1935 141-3 Pawson & Co workrooms, Budgeons shop fitters and electrical contractors, Greig Bros P/L carpets and linos.1939- PAWSON HOUSE, list of occupiers- art flower, clothing manufacturers, agents etc. such as Hollywood Modes..1944-45 see above1950 see above- includes Pawson & Co investors1955 see above
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| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 103930 | 1 JPEG : 761 KB ; A4 | Single Item (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |