Herald and Weekly Times Building: 46-74 Flinders Street, MELBOURNE

Building Profile

Location

Construction Details

Built in the Interwar period in the Beaux Arts style

Notable features

The Herald Building is architecturally significant for its monumentality and neo classical styling, which combined with the roof-top neon signs and the twin radio towers conveys an image of the power and dominance of the print media in the first half of the twentieth century. It is an early example of the commercial neo classical Beaux-Arts influenced idiom in Victoria.

History

The Herald and Weekly Times Building was constructed in stages between 1921 and 1928 to the designs of notable architects HW & FB Tompkins. The main building dominates the corner of Flinders and Exhibition Streets. The building is a five storey, concrete encased steel frame structure with a commercial, neo-classical facade of giant order Ionic pilasters on both major facades. Notable interior elements [extant at the time of registration but since removed with Heritage Victoria approval] include panelling and vacuum tube in the foyer area, the marble and terazzo-lined front stairwell, the foyer, doors and panelled offices along the Flinders Street side. Notable external details include the bracketed lights at the base of each pier. The building was the home of the Herald, the Sun News-Pictorial, and the Herald-Sun. Other specialist publications have included the Sporting Globe, Home Beautiful and Whos Who. Victorias leading country newspaper, the Weekly Times, was also based here. The Herald-Sun is a descendent of Victorias oldest newspaper, the Port-Phillip Patriot, first published in 1840. In 1930 the steel radio tower was added for the radio station 3DB which broadcast from the building.

In 2007 it was made the podium of the larger Ernst & Young Tower.

• National Trust (B6501)


• Victorian Heritage Register (H1147) - Herald and Weekly Times Building is protected by state law

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