Grosvenor Chambers, 9 Collins Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Title:
Grosvenor Chambers, 9 Collins Street, Melbourne
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Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 102057 3
Level of description:
Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
Type of materials:
Graphic materialsTextual material
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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UnrestrictedOpen access.
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UnrestrictedPlease contact City of Melbourne Libraries about obtaining permission to reproduce images.
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2024:__________________________________________________DATE: 1887;ASSOCIATIONS: Paterson, Charles Stewart;DESIGNER: Terry & Oakden;BUILDER: Davison, William J.P.Period: VictorianNotable features: 1. Special historical role as artists accommodation (Tom Roberts et al). 2. Stone facing (part). 3. Restored___________________________VICTORIA HERITAGE REGISTER5-9 Collins Street, 53-57 Spring Street MELBOURNE, MELBOURNEStatement of SignificanceLast Updated: 01/01/1900What is significant?1 Collins Street is a complex of buildings made up of a 1984 office tower, the retained frontages of Victorian terraces at 5-7 and 9 Collins Street, and the 1877 Campbell House on the corner of Spring and Collins Streets (listed separately on the VHR H1945 and not part of this registration).The 1984 tower is massed to emphasise the corner site and address a city vista. The two main faces step forward slightly in three successive sections, and each section rises up one floor creating a corner tower effect, topped by an open belvedere above the 17th floor. The tower has an 8 storey portion built to the Spring Street frontage, topped by a roof garden, while the main tower is setback about 15m on Spring Street and 9m on Collins Street. The tower is clad in pre-cast grey rough faced cement panels incised with a square grid of scored lines and inset with square mirror- glass windows. The windows along each of the top levels, and up the corner bay of the tower for most its height, are recessed, while the rest are flush.Entry to the tower is through a vestibule made by opening up the ground level of the terraces at 5-7 Collins Street, then through an atrium space under a portion of the tower, to reach the central lobby. The atrium is partly open though a space between the tops of the retained buildings and the underside of the 6th level of the tower. All surfaces of the lobby feature square grid-lines, including panelled walls and ceiling , the columns, and the mottled white marble floor, where nine central marble stools cast a diagonal 'shadow' in darker grey marble. There is a second entry via stairs on Spring Street in a gap between the Campbell House and the lower portion of the tower, which features a central inset convex glass-walled bay. The ground floor of 9 Collins Street is occupied by a shop with a 1984 reproduction of the original Victorian shopfront. The retained frontage of the terraces at 5-9 Collins Street is a series of self-contained office spaces at the first and second floors, accessed from curved stairs off the atrium.The development, designed by the emerging firm of Denton Corker Marshall, in association with Robert Peck YFHK (Yuncken Freeman Hong Kong), was announced in 1981 and completed in 1984.The Campbell House, was built in 1877 to a design by architect Leonard Terry, purchased in 1901 by the Commonwealth Government in 1901 and housed Australia's first Prime Ministers (VHR H1945). The ornate arcaded three storey terraces at 5-7 Collins Street were built in 1884, designed by Lloyd Tayler, and used as professional suites and residences. The building at 9 Collins, Grosvenor Chambers, built in 1888, was designed by Oakden Addison & Kemp for C S Paterson, of the famed Patterson Brothers interior decorators, whose office was located in the ground floor in the 1890s. The top floor contained purpose-built artists's studios, which were home to many notable Victorian artists such as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, James Condor, Sir John Longstaff and Charles Summers, and in the 1950s, the home and studio of Mirka Mora and family.In 1971, the State Government swapped Tasma Terrace for the Campbell House, which was then bought by Colonial Mutual Life, whose demolition permit in 1972 was thwarted by a 4Union ban. In 1975, the south wing of the Campbell House was demolished, and a plan for an office tower replacing occupying that area and replacing 5-9 Collins Street was proposed, generating protests from the National Trust and others. In 1980 the site was bought by Singaporean developer Jack Chia, who announced a development retaining the Campbell House and a 9m (or one room) depth of the Collins Street terraces, with a tower rising behind, a compromise accepted by the major stakeholders. 1 Collins Street, as it became known, was completed in 1984, and has undergone few alterations to the exterior or the foyer since then.The development was soon hailed as a significant work, garnering a number of awards from the Victorian Architects Institute. In 1985 it won the Victorian Architecture Merit Award for new commercial buildings, and the next year it won the inaugural William Wilkinson Wardell Medal for the best building of the last three years, and in 2011 won the Enduring Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter).How is it significant?The building known as 1 Collins Street is of architectural and historical significance to the State of Vitoria.Why is it significant?The 1984 part of 1 Collins Street is significant architecturally as a fine example of Postmodern design, and was one of the first large-scale commercial buildings in Victoria designed using the principles of Postmodernism. In a distinct break from the principles of modernism, it is a well-mannered intervention into a sensitive historic context, by using traditional features such as grey textured wall material, deep set windows, and a subtly stepped plan and boldly stepped profile building up to a prominent corner tower element, addressing an important city vista. The use of square grids as an ordering and decorative device is a leitmotif of Postmodernism and especially the work of DCM. All of these attributes were in stark contrast to the prevailing expressed structural grids or glassy curtain walls of late 1970s/ early 1980s Melbourne office blocks. It is widely regarded as an innovative and influential project, which received considerable attention in the architectural press and was the recipient of several major architectural awards at the time and more recently. (Criterion A, E and F)It is also significant as the first in a number of ever larger and more prominent commissions for the firm of Denton Corker Marshall, then at the forefront of architectural experimentation, and which became a highly regarded international firm by the 2010s. (Criterion H)The facade of 5-7 Collins, designed by noted architect Lloyd Tayler, is architecturally significant for the variety and inventive use of finely executed architectural ornament, executed in artificial stone. (Criterion E)Historically, 1 Collins Street is important as the final result of a long campaign to preserve the historic architecture of the site, and the character of the precinct, part of a wider campaign to save what was left of historic Collins Street that was waged in Melbourne from 5the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. It was amongst the very first developments to introduce the concept of the preservation of the front portion of heritage buildings, while allowing for new high-rise construction behind. While not seen as ideal by all parties, this was a seminal compromise approach that was subsequently used on many CBD projects. (Criterion A)The retained portion of 9 Collins Street is historically significant as the only remaining part of a building that included a whole floor of purpose-built artist's studios, occupied by many notable Victorian artists from the 1880s into the 1960s. The preserved top floor studio is significant for retaining its south-facing sawtooth roof. (Criterion H)EXTENT:All of the building known as 1 Collins Street, incorporating the whole of the interior and exterior of the retained portions of 5-7 Collins Street and 9 Collins Street, and the exterior and ground floors lobbies of the 1984 construction.___________________________GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites source 78, page 49Statement of SignificanceHistoryVictoria and its Metropolis chronicles the advent of this, perhaps the only private venture specifically designed (by Oakden, Addison and Kemp) for use as artists' studios. Charles Paterson was accredited as both a 'painter' and the first owner of the property whilst among the third floor studios was John Ford Paterson who was a close associate of the Heidelberg School but obscure in his relationship to Charles. To add to the Patersons contained by the building, the ground level was taken by James and Hugh Paterson who offered a total artistic service 'designs and estimates for every description of decorating and paintings'; their photographic branch was at Cramond House, Queensberry Street, Carlton. Not entirely incidental to the creative character of Grosvenor Chambers was Mrs Eeles' dressmaking business at the second level which contained a miniature factory for forty and a mysterious 'dark room' where gas light effects could be demonstrated. It was the upper level artistic occupierDescriptionIts components, described in 1887, included a cast-iron shopfront with ornamented spandrels courtesy (with the cathedral glass stairlight) of decorators Brooks Robinson and Co, a 'classic style' facade faced with cement and incorporating Stawell freestone pilasters on the top storey; and the distinctively skillion shaped side wall which held the giant south facing 'conglobated' studio skylight designed after principles laid down by British painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds. The 'classic' facade is chaste and without fault: the typical problem of asymmetry caused by a combined shopfront and office entrance being overcome by the continuation of the iron arcade across the office portal. Upstairs the attic storey windows graduate in height but balance the void of the lower windows and fine string moulds between them, rule off the storeys.Statement of SignificanceThe most tangible shrine surviving to Australia's most important 'school' of art, particularly remaining parts of the third floor studios, also a conservative but faultless design in the Italian Renaissance revival manner and an early work of the prolific Melbourne architects, Oakden Addison and Kemp (see former Working Men's College).__________________________________________________LEWIS, M- AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE INDEX74618 Terry & Oakden; Paterson, C S Melbourne VIC Buildings Davidson, W - 219 Bridge Rd Richmond 1887 09 1 2994-MCC registration no 2994 [Burchett Index]. Fee 3.10.0building, Collins east_______________________________________Victorian Heritage Inventory H7822-1832Land first sold to P L Campbell of Sydney in 1839. 5th land sale 1839, Block 8, Allotment 11. Purchased by Dr Howitt 1845. Subdivided 1864. Corner block purchased by Hon. William Campbell 1876.No.1: 3 level building erected 1870 for W Campbell. Housed Australia's first War Cabinet, 1914.No.5-7: 2 houses built by merchant, George Rolfe, 1884.No.9: Grosvenor Chambers built 1887/8. Constructed for occupation by artists/studios.1888 - 3 buildings (Medical). 1905 - 3 buildings (Govt. Offices Commonwealth)___________________________City of Melbourne i-HeritageNo. 9 Collins Street, now part of 1 - 9 Collins Street property key. NTA - class; see Sutherland p. 554__________________________________________________Victorian Heritage DatabaseNATIONAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA (VIC)Last updated on - April 20, 2007Numbers 5 and 7 Collins Street, Melbourne originally constructed as a terrace to the design of Lloyd Tayler, architect, is one of the finer Boom Style terraces in Melbourne. The design of the building and its elaborate detailing is particularly finely executed and is important for the variety and inventive use of architectural ornament as well as for motifs such as the use of stilted segmental arches to each floor and the use of different supporting elements to each level of the arcade, using piers, paired and single columns. The arcade facade is constructed in synthetic stone with the remainder of the structure constructed in brickwork; this form of composite construction and particularly the use of a synthetic stone facade for a terrace is more unusual and is indicative of the quality of the building. The architect of the terrace, Lloyd Tayler, was respected and well-known and the design of Nos. 5 and 7 demonstrates his abilities. Terraces (and housing generally) are now rare in the Central Business District of Melbourne and this terrace forms an important example, as it is representative of the uncommon three-storey terrace as well as the particular residential form that this end of Collins Street had throughout the nineteenth century, originally individual houses and later housing of a greater density.They comprise a terrace of two houses constructed in 1884 for merchant, George Rolfe. The three-storey building features an arcade to all floors. Stilted segmental arches are a feature of the design as is the elaborate nature of the decorative elements used and their variety. The ground floor arcade is supported on square piers whilst the first floor level rests on paired columns and single columns are used for the top floor. The parapet is particularly high and elaborately decorated and is crowned by a pierced baulstrade and pedimented central bays. The terrace has a basement and parts of the cast iron palisades, gates and railings at ground level remain.The building remains remarkably intact. Most particularly alterations to the facade to permit commercial occupancies this century have not wrought the drastic alterations that buildings such as 'Melville House' and 'Portland House' have suffered.'Grosvenor Chambers' 9 Collins Street, Melbourne Grosvenor Chambers, is a three-storied building designed by prominent Melbourne architects, Terry and Oakden and erected in 1887 to 1888 for Charles Stewart Paterson, a Melbourne art decorator.It is an unusually late example of the transitional architectural style between the Conservative Classical Style and the Boom Style Classicism which characterises buildings of the 1880s. In this regard the building is of architectectural note. However, the building's prime importance is that it was constructed specifically as artists' studios. The building has been occupied by some of Australia's most illustrious painters in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Tom Roberts, who completed some of his most important works in 'Grosvenor Chambers'; Streeton; Condor; Sir John Longstaff and Charles Summers. There is perhaps no other building in Victoria which has close associations with these illustrious artists and with such a momentous movement in Australian Art.The facade features three large round-headed windows to the first floor level with a row of five windows of much smaller proportions to the top floor. The restrained rendered facade is relieved by horizontal string courses, recessed balustrades beneath the windows which feature impost mouldings and prominent keystones and Stawell freestone pilasters on the upper storey. There is a balustraded parapet above the prominent cornice.The building remains substantially intact internally. The facade has been altered on the ground floor where new shop-fronts have been installed.Classified: 22/01/1981Group Classification: No. 61 Spring Street & Nos. 5-7-9 Collins Street, comprise an important group of buildings framing the vista to the Old Treasury Building, one of Victoria's finest buildings. They are integral elements of the precinct at the top end of Collins Street and the sections of Spring Street around the intersection with Collins Street and leading up to Parliament House.The buildings form a unified group in terms of scale and mass whilst at the same time retaining sufficient variety of volume, skyline and architectural detail to add visual interest to the precinct as a whole and to maintain the individual effect of each building. This group also forms a foil to the early twentieth century buildings opposite which are the solution of that time to this singularly important precinct. The buildings are representative of the residential use which was the traditional land use of this end of Collins Street throughout the nineteenth century. The elaborate Boom Style design of Nos. 5 and 7 provides an important contrast to the restrained Conservative Classical design of No. 61 Spring Street, whilst No. 9 repeats the Conservative manner of 61 Spring Street, although constructed well after Nos. 5 and 7.See also B1945 (61 - 74 Spring Street)__________________________________________________
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| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 102057 3 | 1 JPEG : 1,003 KB ; A4 | Single Item (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |