Sleigh Corner, later Elders House, and 'Transformation' by sculptor Tom Bass, 158-164 Queen Street & 426-442 Collins Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Total copies: 1
Title:
Sleigh Corner, later Elders House, and 'Transformation' by sculptor Tom Bass, 158-164 Queen Street & 426-442 Collins Street, Melbourne
Creator:
Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 108108
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:
RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2022:__________________________________________________Period: Post Second-WarNotable features: `decorative' precast concrete facade elementsDATE: 1964;ASSOCIATIONS: H. C. Sleigh Ltd,;DESIGNER: Bates, Smart & McCutcheon; Tom Bass;BUILDER: Hansen & Yuncken Pty Ltd,.CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEWWhat is significant?The former Sleigh Corner building at 158-164 Queen Street, and the former H C Sleigh Building at 166-172 Queen Street, Melbourne, both completed to a design by Bates Smart & McCutcheon, aresignificant.Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):• Original building form and scale (158-164 & 166-172);• Original asymmetric solid painted render form and nonloadbearing curtain wall to its principal(Queen Street) façade, square windows to southern end wall (166-172); • Original masonry wall with fenestration pattern and windows to its rear (off Kirks Lane) façade (166-172),• Original concrete peripheral columns and recessed foyer and shopfronts along both street frontagesat ground level (158-164);• Original non-loadbearing curtain wall, horizontal fenestration pattern, and applied concrete panels,expressed concrete structure and non-loadbearing bagged brick lift shaft (158-164);• Recessed office foyer and adjacent setback lift shaft and plaza (158-164); and• Tom Bass sculpture known as ‘Transportation’ (1963) in its original plaza setting (158-164).Later alterations, particularly at street level, are not significant.How it is significant?The former Sleigh Buildings, comprising the H C Sleigh Building at 166-172 Queen Street, and theformer Sleigh Corner, at 158-164 Queen Street, are of local historical, representative and aestheticsignificance to the City of Melbourne.Why it is significant?The former Sleigh Buildings are historically significant as a part of the postwar development and rapidgrowth of corporate architecture of the 1950s and 1960s. Located in the financial and commercialprecinct of Queen Street, they reflect 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 fundinvestment. The buildings were built for Australian company H C Sleigh Ltd (estab. 1895), founder of the Golden Fleece brand of petrol and service stations. H C Sleigh owned and occupied the building at 166-172 Queen Street from 1955 to 1964, before moving to their new, purpose-built premises next door at 158-164 Queen Street. The building at 166-172 Queen Street is notable as the first postwar city office block to be constructed in Melbourne for a private company. It is further significant as a very earlyexample of a curtain-walled office building, the design of which predates the earliest fully gazed example(Gilbert House, constructed in 1955), and as an early and well-executed design in the the Post-WarModernist style by noted architectural firm of Bates, Smart & McCutcheon. (Criterion A)Viewed together, the former Sleigh Buildings highlight the shift away from the earlier use of uniformglass curtain wall systems in the 1950s to a greater three dimensional quality, achieved during the1960s through the use of assertive textures and precast concrete cladding panels. The two buildingsalso illustrate the rapid development of the Post-War Modernist style over a decade, from the mid-1950sto the mid-1960s, and the enthusiasm with which large corporations embraced the style to reflect their rapidgrowth and status. At almost twice the height of its eight-storey neighbour at 166-172 Queen Street, andincorporating a publicly accessible plaza, the 15-storey former Sleigh Corner building illustrates the mid1960s changes in city planning associated with the lifting of the 40 metre (132 foot) height restrictionsafter 1958. (Criterion A)The H C Sleigh Building at 166-172 Queen Street is representative of the earlier development of thePost-War Modernist style that prevailed prior to the 1960s abolition of the 40 metre (132 foot) heightcontrol that had been in place since 1916. The principal façade to Queen Street exhibits anasymmetrical combination of a solid modernist form, painted but originally blue tiles, with an offsetprojecting curtain wall which dominates the principal façade and extends from the first to the eighth floor.The building clearly expresses the key characteristics of its style and time of construction throughretention of the simple strong modularity derived from its 1953-55 design. The former Sleigh Cornerbuilding, at 158-164 Queen Street, demonstrates later developments in the Post-War Modernist style.With its use of applied concrete panels over an expressed structural system, the former Sleigh Corner isa fine example of the Post-War Modernist style of the 1960s that moved away from the use of uniformglass curtain wall systems to more heavily modulated facades giving a three-dimensional quality to thebuildings. (Criterion D)The former Sleigh Corner building is aesthetically significant as a refined and substantial example oflater development in curtain wall design. Constructed in 1964 it utilises a mix of materials to create agreater modularity and three-dimensional quality to the facades. Its aesthetic significance lies in theretention of the original building form, including original entry foyer and shopfront setback to both streetfrontages, the plaza setback and original sculpture on the rear wall of the publicly accessible plaza. Theplaza form was once a common type for buildings of this era, created in response to the site plot ratioregime between 1964 and 1999, but which is becoming increasingly rare within the Hoddle Grid. Theaesthetic significance is further enhanced by retention of the original Tom Bass sculpture‘Transportation’, attached to the rear wall of the plaza (lift shaft). (Criterion E).GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites RAIA 20th C. Register, notes decorative precast concrete facade elements;___________________________BUILDING IDEAS (CSR) March 1965105 H. C. Sleigh Corner of Bourke and Queen Streets, 1964 Bates, Smart and McCutcheon Sculpture facing Queen Street by Tom Bass.___________________________GRAEME BUTLER 1982-3, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS (VIC) 20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE SURVEY and 20th CENTURY BUILDINGS REGISTERProvides designers and builders, and tw images; CITY OF MELBOURNE BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATION 35514, 27.4.1962 estimated cost £1,483,000.___________________________CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEWThe former Sleigh buildings were built for HC Sleigh Ltd, founders of Golden Fleece petrol and service stations. The first building of eight storeys, the H C Sleigh Building, was constructed in 1953-55 at 166-172 Queen Street. It was occupied by HG Sleigh Ltd from 1955-65. Requiring new premises, a larger 15-storey building was constructed in 1964 for the company on the adjoiningcorner site at 158-164 Queen Street, the Sleigh Corner Building (now known as Elders House). HC Sleigh remained at the 1964 building until 1981. Both buildings were designed by Bates Smart &McCutcheon in the Post-War Modernist style, which is differently expressed in the architecture of each building. 158-164 Queen Street retains its original publicly accessible plaza with sculpture'Transformation' (Transportation?) created by sculptor Tom Bass. Both buildings are used as offices, with 158-164 Queen Street occupied by Elders since 1983___________________________City of Melbourne online mapsElders House:15 storey concrete office building with a basement car park and incorporating an older 4 storey brick building to Kirks Lane. Designed by Bates Smart & McCutcheon and built in 1964.___________________________Cross-sectionMay I, 1964`This 17-storey (14 above, 2 below ground) office building for H. C. Sleigh is the latest from the firm of architects Bates Smart & McCutcheon, and their third on the intersection of Queen and Bourke Streets, Melb. (On the N.W. corner, South British Insurance Co, C-S No. 114, April '62; on the S.E. corner, Prudential Assurance. S.W. Corner is occupied by Pearl Assurance House—Leslie M. Perrott & Partners, archts; C-S No. 103, May '61).In sophistication of materials, details, interior layout and choice of finishes, H. C. Sleigh's is a highly polished, deft and professional design—so facile and fastidious that it almost begins to irritate. Errors of taste and opinion assume an unwarranted importance: the gold mosaic facing to all but the corner columns proves again that nothing incriminates a building more than gilt. (The Canberra Civic Centre columns, C-S No. 110, are a previous case in point).To list the materials used on various facades is to indicate the arbitrariness of the elevational divisions—in the jargon of the formalists: neither vertical nor horizontal dominate and structure is not expressed but made ambiguous. Externally, corner columns are faced with grey-blue ceramic tiles, other cols in gold glass mosaic. Wall panels: reconstructed stone. Upper panels rough white; recessed bands — black ceramic mosaic. Grey Sicilian marble capping around gardens at the base and in the lift lobby. Service tower—dark grey conc. block. End wall—light conc. Block. Cost approx £I mill. Bates Smart & McCutcheon, archts & engrs; W. E. Bassett & Partners, mech engrs; Hansen & Yuncken Pty Ltd, bldrs.'.June 1, 1962A new 16 storey bldg for H. C. Sleigh Ltd. is to be built on the N-E corner of Queen and Bourke Sts (Melb). With an incredulity borne perhaps of familiarity with reporting more exotic structures, the Melb "Age'' disclosed that "A novel feature of the bldg will be the absence of centre supporting pillars on each floor. The ceilings and root will be supported by the walls." (Italics by C-S). This will be the third bldg designed by Bates, Smart & McCutcheon, archts, on this intersection. The other two are (N-W corner) the South British Insurance Co Ltd (C-S No. 114) and S-E corner the Prudential Assure-.ce Co Ltd. S-W corner isoccupied by Pearl Assurance Co Ltd, (C-S No 103), Leslie M. Perrott & Ptnrs, archts See also May 1, 1964(See 170 Queen Street)
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Research and reports
Record number:
1261749
| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 108108 | 1 PDF : 876 KB ; A4 | Group of Items (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |