280-282 Bourke Street: 280-282 Bourke Street, MELBOURNE

Building Profile

Location

Construction Details

Built in the Victorian period in the Neo-Gothic style

Notable features

Remarkable tracery, restrained oriel with vertical emphasis culminating in a fanciful gable composed of tourelles featuring multiple cross shaped fleche.

The Gothic Shop at 280-282 Bourke Street was constructed in 1913 for Francis and Company Chemists to the designs of leading Victorian architect Nahum Barnet.The facade of the shop is reinforced concrete and conceals a reinforced concrete-company constructed building (company owned by John Monash) and is one of the earliest reinforced concrete multi-storey buildings in Melbourne. The old Francis building comprises a basement, ground floor and three upper floors. The facade is of reinforced concrete and features oriel windows extending the length of the three upper floors, over a pointed arched entry. Fine attached Gothic columns frame the oriel and support arches with finials at third floor level. The top of the oriel has a rounded window head and contains three pointed lights which are further divided internally, the central one crowned by an oculi. The shaped top of the oriel has a finial and the pointed parapet has large finial at the apex and each side, crowning the projecting end piers over the lower attached columns. A date 1849 is incorperated into a plaque at the base of the oriel and possibly refers to the year in which the firm was established. The shop at 280-82 Bourke Street is linked to another Gothic styled shop at 290-92 Bourke Street by a third shop. This middle shop, built in 1914, does not greatly detract from the visual impact of the Gothic facades to either side.

History

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