UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
APRIVATE COMMUNICATION TO ARCHITECTS AND MASTER BUILDERS
4tt*;
Issue No. 7: May 1, 1953
Protests followed the arrival of wreckers at the fire-gutted but still substantial remains of Wilson Hall at Melb Univ. Many still wanted to see the old shell (a) restored (b) simply repaired or (c) cleaned up & left as a relic. As the south wall tumbled the controversy blew into a storm of petition & threatened injunction. Finally the Union (BTF) called it black &
last week the wrecking stopped, pending Univ council decision. Some laymen expressed disillusionment when the wreckers discovered that "solid oak"
beams & panelling were veneer on oregon. But why should this change the position? The whole Gothic Revival building was false. It was a product of an age of unconscionable faking. But it was a pretty, picturesque fake &
one of the only buildings in the University capable of arousing affection.
Work will begin at last on the new university at Sandy Bay, Hobart, the Tas Govt having voted £60,000 for '53-54. But it will be "years before it is completed". It has already been years since the design was prepared in Mediterranean Renaissance by Prof Leslie Wilkinson (Syd). More recently younger architects hoped for a change in plans to a modern building. Con- troversy ensued, then died out. The original designs still stand. Prof Wilkinson has prepared the working drawings. Details & construction will be by Public Works Dept. The present university is in Hobart city; tempor- ary science buildings are now on the new site.
IT Site work started on Perth's first post-war office bldg for Prudential Assurance in St George's Terrace. Eastern-state bldrs tendered, but the contract went to Messrs A T Brine & Sons of Perth: approx £250,000. The facade may disappoint those who expect change since Perth last built city offices. Relatively small windows punctuate 7 floors of freestone facing above a granite base. But it has a basement car park. The architects are Messrs Oldham, Boas, Ednie-Brown & Partners.
(~ Before the unexpected decision of the IOC at Mexico City on April 18 to leave the 1956 Olympic Games with Melbourne, the 3 financial sponsors of the Games - C'wealth, State & City - finally approved the Pools bldg project. Revised plans had eliminated 6 of the 18 bays. 4000 seats will now be covered. The diving pool will be outdoors, its 2000 seats temporary.
Press reports of the estimated cost during the protracted argument were misleading. The estimate for the competition winning design was £336,000.
At no time did it grow to the £500,000 reported. Now it is cut to less than
£300,000. /Many Melbourne people still believe that the city's claim to the Games is about 50 yrs too early - or 50 yrs too late; but no one can doubt the value of the stimulation they will give some neglected fields of the bldg industry.
CI Entries close June 30 for 1953 Sulman Prize: Public & Monumental bldgs.
4j Pre-war, before registration of architects became law, the self-styled
"builder-architect" was an annoyance to properly qualified architects.
To-day, following the Architon case in Syd (C-S Mar) the "architect-
builder" is an annoyance to established builders. This month the NSW RAIA will hold a special general meeting to discuss the controversy.
(IJ Left Melb for overseas, these senior members of the RVIA: Messrs John Buchan, Bernard Evans, Eric Hughes, J F D Scarborough. Partnered in Melb: Fritz Janeba & K Crosier. /Neil Montgomery, Lionel King & Robert Trengove. Awarded the Albert Kahn Memorial Fellowship at Pennsylvania Univ for 1953-4, Mr Keith Neighbor, 33, of Adelaide. The Fellowship is open to arch'ts of all nations. Mr Neighbor will leave for Philadelphia in August.
/Left Syd to start practice in Singapore, his home town, Mr Ho Kok Yn, graduate of NSW U of T. Awarded Skidmore Owings & Merrill Fellow in Arch at Univ of California for '53-54: Mr Don Fulton, Melb.
This architects' sketch of the £1100 SA Memorial to US Servicemen & Women brought forth such comments by newspaper correspondents as "I am amazed . . lacks emotional significance . . . no quality of good architecture & none of good art." 2 cast rectangular columns 16' high will be finished in sandstone of seemingly inappropriate design, arranged in uneasy duality G. reflected, fittingly, in an artificial lake. Work started on it in the Botanic Gardens, Adelaide, last month. (F.
Kenneth Milne, Dawkins, Boehm & Ellis, arch'ts; William Essey & Sons, contractors).
Some of Victoria's 12,000 mentally retarded children are now delightfully accommodated in 1 a new nursery in Warrigal-rd. The Oakleigh Mentally Retarded Children's Welfare Assn, with help from Mr Val Doube, local MLA, raised funds, not from wealthy contributors. Weekend voluntary labour stretched the money. The builders, Messrs F Morris & Sons, charged out-of- pocket expenses only. Messrs Mussen, Mackay & Potter preferred not to be appointed honorary arch'ts. They charged full fees, then returned them on completion, thus kept full authority during building. The 42 squares take 40 children at a session, cost only £5,800 & took 6 mths to build. To be ready for the opening on April 11, 600 sq yds of kerbed road were laid in 6 hrs. The front is an arresting blue & yellow checker with nursery drawings, flanked by deep oiled boarded wings.
ci The C'wealth Bank's staff quarters at Rabaul now building has practically no solid walls; inside and outside they are made of adjustable weather- board louvres fixed direct to the frame from floor and ceiling.
4I Last month at Frankston, Vic,2,3a 45' diameter house was finished (Roy Grounds, arch't; Norman Echberg, bldr) ; at Toorak4, 5 a 48' square house with4 26' diam court was started (Roy Grounds, arch't; Norman Echberg, bldr.)
Students at Sydney Univ & NSW Univ of Technology will no longer have to compete for single awards. 2 Byera Hadley Scholarships (overseas travel,
£275) & 2 NSWBA Research Bursaries (£150) will now be awarded annually, one to each University. /Entries for the 1953 Haddon Travelling Scholar- ship, Vic (£350), closed on Wednesday. Design subject: a nightclub. The award will be announced this month.
411 The Vic Govt decided to proceed with an underpass from South Melb to
5
Alexandra Av under St Kilda-rd, involving minor rerouting of trams & a special Act of Parlt to acquire some of the affected land. This is the first practical application of a recommendation from the Board of Works' planners since the Board became T-P authority for Melbourne in 1949.
9
The Western District Hospital 6 at Woodville, SA, by the Hospital Div'n of the Arch't-in-Chief's Dept, has clean, businesslike elements which place it in advance of our average current architecture. But it has a stiff symmetrical formality which seems retrogressive in one of the few fields in which Aust'n building is unsurpassed. First £4m section of the Nurses' Block (foreground) is nearing completion by A W Baulderstone Ltd.6
The main block includes General (308 beds) & Maternity wing (92 beds).
cl 3 estates now building indicate the sterility of ideas in current mass housing: near Kwinana, WA (C-S Feb); at 7 Warranna, Tas; & 8 Serviceton, Q.
A significant development in post-war housing is the gradual levelling of regional differences to an unimpressive average. Official housing auth- orities somehow manage to make every landscape from Cairns to Hobart look the same. Q'land housing has now climbed down the traditional stilts & sits on treeless ground in strict conformity with southern habits. The HC's
7
new estate at Serviceton, ex-US Army depot, is notable for its destruction of an apparently excellent basis for a suburb - roads, services & land- scaping - laid down by the US Army. /The Agricultural Bank's new estate at Warranne, Tas (80 houses to date) introduces slightly improved windows.
But the principal architectural feature here is the regimental rows of external earth closets. The Council would have permitted septic tanks. A correspondent of the Mercury asked why did the Bank have to paint every closet the same conspicuous green irrespective of the house colour.
▪ The RVIA Victorian Street Architectural Medal, awarded annually from 1929 to 1942, mainly for city office facades, is to be revived in slightly liberalized form. The word "Street" will significantly be dropped. The first of the new awards is expected this year.
QJ
In SA, 6 church organisations are spending £70,000 this year on exten- sions to aged people's homes; a Lutheran College at Camden Park is being planned by Mr Dean Berry, arch't; work has begun on a £50,000 RC boys'9
college at Beverley. /Public approval of the untraditional approach in ecclesiastic architecture is indicated by the reception given 9 St John's, RC, at Mitcham, Vic. (Mr G Robertson, arch't; C-S Nov '52).
• Brisbane CC, out to end shanty towns of owner-bldrs, first banned tem- porary dwellings, then garages on vacant lots, then prepared sketch designs of a dozen stereotyped "sectional plans" suitable for building in 2 stages.
Work began on a £50,000 fermentation plant & cellars at Carlton & United Breweries' 80' x 60' site in Victoria-st, Melb. 2 storeys in steel frame
& brick panel will be built this year, adding 4,000 hogsheads capacity.
3 more storeys next year will carry it 100 ft high. (C & UB staff arch'ts;
E A Watts, bldr; steel by McGrath Trailer & Equip't Co.)
(Q RVIA & MBA (Vic) have at last reached agreement on a new simple method
10
of calculating "rise-&-fall". A formula will determine the adjustment according to the value and currency of the contract.
• A £30,000 ballroom will be added to Burnside, SA, Town Hall.
A second hangar may begin at West Beach, SA, soon; but opening of the airport waits completion of passenger & control buildings.
4T Brisbane's graceful Grey-st, Victoria & Story bridges, Australia's most handsome group, are to be defaced by neon signs, by decision of the BCC.
41 An outward-sloping window is No 1 cliche of current shop fronts. But in the light10,11showroom & workshop just finished for Riverside Motors on the old wharf structure on Yarra Bank, S Melb, the big window slopes sharply inward below a dark visor, & street reflections are eliminated with
remarkable effect. The top edge of the plate glass is hung on a horizontalll truss from the front wall. The surrounding wall is obscure wired glass.
(A S & R A Eggleston, arch'ts; Rispin Bros, bldrs.)
SLOVING CEILIn0 O.5CUCE GLASS GLUOSEÇGENT LICHT LOUVE VENTS
A new store at Frankston, stopping off and shopping centre for
Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, emphasises planning and presentation as an important factor in retail selling.
Architects: Mockridge, Stahle &
Mitchell.
What the eye does see, the sales chart registers ...
iI
"Visual" windows give the customer a complete view of the interior.Every article in the store is on display and selling actively to the window shopper. Small units display key lines close to the window.
lijj Spaciousness achieved in planning has been emphasised by elevating the counters on thin metal legs, allowing the eye to follow the floor pattern beneath.
I Counters are moveable units 4'0"
long, allowing for easy layout changes.
jjStrong colour has been used for dramatic presentation, and the unusual black and white pattern of the DUNLOP SEMASTIC TILE FLOOR provides an interesting base to the whole scheme.
gfExternal facing to the stall boards and piers of the shop window also employs DUNLOP SEMASTIC TILES. For complete unity and harmony of texture and colour, breaking down even further the barrier between interior and exterior, the DUNLOP SEMASTIC TILES facing has been continued through on to selected interior walls.
WHERE BEAUTY & UTILITY MUST COMBINE
Specify DUNLOP SEMASTIC FLOOR TILES
COMPLETE FLOORING SERVICE
Contact your state Flooring Department, Dunlop Rubber Australia Limited, for complete information concerning:
SEMASTIC FLOOR TILES • RUBBER FLOORING • FLEXIMERS STAIR TREADS • LINK MATS
DUNLOP RUBBER AUSTRALIA LIMITED (Inc. in Vic.)
