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State Insurance Office, 480-490 Collins Street, Melbourne

Butler, Graeme1985

Record details

Title:

Creator:

Butler, Graeme (Name details)

Date of work:

1985

Reference number:

BIF-CITY 102118

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-Second WarConstruction date: 1965.ASSOCIATED RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER:.GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYStatement of SignificanceHistory(Refer 412 Collins Street)Apparently outgrowing their first building, at 412 Collins Street, the State AccidentInsurance Office commissioned architects, Mackay & Potter, to design this new and bigger (18 storey) headquarters. Renamed later, as the State Insurance Office (1975, the building was occupied in 1965 after acquisition of the land in May, 1963. Government Departments which occupied the building in the mid-1970's, included the Local Government Ministry, Building Regulations Committee, Town Planning Appeals Tribunal, Port Phillip Authority and Marine Board of Victoria.Along with other new government or instrumentality offices, this building was illustrated in the `Building Ideas' guide to Melbourne architecture of 1965. All three were then under construction, indicating that government too was caught up in the 1960s office boom. As with the previous building, the insurance market place was established in this part of Collins Street and it was expeditious to follow it.Mackay & Potter had also been involved with the Gas and Fuel Corporation offices in St. Kilda Road (1958- ) and, prior to that, had been innovative in their treatment of the Hosies Hotel pre-games redevelopment and the sheer glass curtain wall designed for the A.P.M. Boiler House, Alphington. The use of precast concrete mullions was relatively new, (refer Federation Insurance, Flinders Street, 1955- , not expressed; A.C.I. House, 546-60 Bourke Street, c1967; and South British Insurance, Bourke Street, 1961).DescriptionA bland, but functional, international Modern Facade, which expresses the growing interest in massive facades, as distinct from the all glass skins seen previously. At 18 floors and gross area 1453 square metres, the volume it housed was large and relatively cost-efficient. No structural grid (besides that of the pre-cast mullions) is evident on the elevation, the emphasis being on the vertical direction, with aluminium spandrels marking the floor-levels. Full height glazed screens, a planter cum podium, minimal entry canopy and a set of wide steps are predictable ground-level elements.External IntegrityGenerally original.StreetscapeCorresponds in fenestration, scale and siting with 468-78 Collins Street, and similarly (except siting) with the set-backMarland House on the west.SignificancePerhaps the most architecturally pretentious of the new wave of government offices built outside of their traditional Spring Street domain in the CAD; also, a relatively early use of expressed simple pre-cast window mullions, (structural ?), as distinct from semi-decorative (South British) or unexpressed (Federation Insurance), as part of aconscious departure from the all-glass facades of the 1950s and early 1960s..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.Google Streetview, 2021:additions at ground level since 1984.CROSS—SECTIONIssue No. 148. February I, 1965.articles about two similar new insurance buildings in Melbourne and Sydney.Pearl Assurance Company Ltd., new 22-storey office18-storey Australian headquarters for the Royal Insurance Group, in Collins Street,indicative of a boom in insurance company offices..CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEW: 613Mussen Mackay & Potter, architectsMussen, Mackay and Potter was established in c1950 by architect, Keith Mackay, and civil engineers,Norman Henry Mussen and Charles Potter. The firm undertook a range of commercial, educationaland industrial work in the 1950s. Mussen was also a lecturer at the University of Melbourne in the1940s and 1950s – his teaching on structural engineering influenced architects like Peter McIntyreand Kevin Borland.The firm’s commercial work in Melbourne included a store for Sportsgirl in Collins Street (1955) andHosie’s Hotel in Flinders Street (1954-56), which was constructed in readiness for the 1956 OlympicGames. The firm became Mackay and Potter in c1958, after which it designed offices for the Gas &Fuel Corporation in St Kilda Road, Albert Park and the State Accident and Motor Car Insurance onCollins Street, Melbourne (1965).

Names:

City of Melbourne

Topics:

Central Activities District Conservation Study 1985Conservation studiesPostwar periodInsuranceOffices1960-1969Twentieth Century Architecture Register (RAIA)

Places:

Melbourne (Vic.)

Form/Genre:

Building Identification Forms (BIFs)

Record types:

Research and reports

Record number:

1195718