Melbourne & Australian Architecture Topics

I posted this on the other forum when Walking Melbourne was out of service. I thought that since this website is enjoyed by a different cohort, that I would "re-post" this popular thread here so that everyone could appreciate our city's Brutal past!

I cannot say I particularly like Brutalism as a style, but it is interesting nonetheless. Melbourne is apparently not particulary rich in Brutalist buildings compared to other cities.

Cheers!

Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool (Kevin Borland & Daryl Jackson 1967)
Edgar Street, Malvern










St Kilda Public Library (Enrico Taglietti 1973)
150 Carlisle Street, St Kilda






National Gallery of Victoria (Roy Grounds - 1960s)
St Kilda Road, South Yarra

(more pics to come....)




Plumbing Trades Employees Union of Australia Building (Graeme Gunn 1970)
52 Victoria Street, Melbourne







Faculty of Engineering (c.1965)
Grattan Street, University of Melbourne







Metropolitan Fire Brigade
456 Albert Street, East Melbourne









Education Resource Centre
University of Melbourne

Ugly as all hell.

Meteorology & Earth Sciences Building
Swanston Street, Parkville. I really like this one!


Enjoy!


Our modern heritage is set in concrete
24 December 2005 [Source]

The stern frontage of the R.A.W. Woodgate Centre at MLC, Kew.
Photo: Craig Abraham


Victoria's examples of a famed architectural style are to be preserved, reports Julie Szego.

YOU know the buildings even if you don't know they're historical gems. There's the Harold Holt Swim Centre in Glen Iris, the Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees Union in Carlton, and the Total Carpark in Russell Street, which looks like a stack of floating concrete decks crowned by a television set. They are buildings sculpted from textured, off-form concrete, with slabs of blank wall and sharp angles. They are confronting, muscular, focused and, well, brutal.

These buildings are some of Melbourne's best examples of "Brutalist" architecture. And moves are under way to preserve and better appreciate such terrible beauties that date from a more optimistic era, despite their stern character.

Experts concede this is likely to be an uphill battle. "Ugly as hell," is one way RMIT associate professor of architecture Doug Evans describes Brutalism. "All that concrete is not very friendly. You could lose a lot of skin on one of those buildings."

But the Harold Holt pool is likely to be placed on the Victorian heritage register as early as February, giving it the highest level of statutory protection. Once this happens, the Stonnington Council will require a permit to carry out what it says are badly needed renovations. Two other Brutalist buildings, Menzies College at La Trobe University's Bundoora campus and the Methodist Ladies College library at Kew, have been nominated for National Trust classification. Preserving the Brutalist aesthetic was one aspect of the campaign that saved at least part of the AFL's Waverley Park in 2000.

Brutalism originated in the mid-1950s in Britain, building on the work of modern architecture pioneer Le Corbusier. The philosophy stresses the unity of form, structure and function. It celebrates the process of construction, often using off-form concrete that reveals timber markings. The Total Carpark, built in 1965, heralded the arrival of the Brutalist style in Victoria.

The fight over the Harold Holt pool dates back to 2001 when the National Trust became concerned over council plans to renovate the centre, which includes indoor and outdoor pools. "They were probably reluctant to recognise this as important modern architecture — that's just reading between the lines," says National Trust senior historian Celestina Sagazio.

The trust then nominated the building, designed by architects Kevin Borland and Daryl Jackson, to Victoria's Heritage Council for listing. In its report, Heritage Victoria describes the pool as being among the "most notable, expressive, earliest and intact examples of the concrete Brutalist movement". The building was praised for its concrete blocks, windows, circular pedestrian ramps, skylights, service ducts and mezzanine observation deck. Brutalism's "ethical concern" for being socially responsive is expressed "through an honesty in the materials used and the centrality of the user in the design of the building".

Some nice photographs of some very nondescript buildings.

thanks for the collection olderfleet.. NGV is on St Kilda Road, Melbourne though !

Is the other forum taboo ? Some people here seem to be afraid to say the word Skyscraper City ... did I miss something ? although I'd love to see more info on construction projects here, afterall that's where it all started ....
Seriously it is great to see the forum being frequented with some quality posting of late. Now actually makes me sad that it was down for so long ...

Great post. I don't mind brutalism in the right places in small doses but Brisbane has some big doses and that is one of the things that makes many part of it so ugly. (I can say things like that without getting trolled by JayT here).

Speaking of brutalism, the ETU building on Lonsdale Street is a shocker too.

without hi-jacking OlderFleet's great thread, i think WM and SSC are quite diferent in a lot of ways and i'm glad they are.... SSC knows how to be all about size and loudness and who's the tallest / biggest, and most of the forumers have extremely loud signatures / avatars and a lot is being said without much substance. where WM is quieter and more intimate, not as many uncivilised people and opinions, some days only little is said but it's mostly of good substance.

back onto brutalism, i did like the cascading WTC before the recent two-tone paint job as well.

I think I might have started that one by using the term "The Other Site" a while back. I borrowed it from kuro5hin where they use it when referring to Slashdot - the size and signal-to-noise ratio relationship of those two sites is very similar to that between WM and SSC.

I just find the term amusing, and definitely not meant to imply any kind of taboo, especially when so many of us are active on both forums.

Back on the thread topic - I don't mind that CEPU building at all. I think Brutalism can work well on buildings like this but tends not to scale upwards so well. Some of the less-lovely buildings make me wonder what could be achieved with a bit of glazing, tiling, or even a coat of paint.