Rohan
Storey has explained that although flats have existed for centuries (usually in
cities on confined sites, such as 16th century tenements in Edinburgh’s old
town), the first flats in Melbourne were rather like private hotels or serviced
apartments on the English or American models. Melbourne Mansions (1906, now
demolished) in Collins Street
were the earliest example here.
Another of this type is Fawkner Mansions
(1910), at 250 Punt Road;
often said to be the earliest surviving block of flats in Victoria.
However, its rooms always shared common bathrooms and now the interiors have
been altered. The Majestic, 153 Fitzroy Street
(1912) is the earliest surviving relatively intact block containing flats in
Victoria.
But even in 1912, it’s two-room ‘flats’ shared bathroom facilities: five
bathrooms between ten suites; two suites had their own bathrooms and the two
front suites on each floor had three rooms, a bathroom and were the only suites
with a kitchen. So it was only these two suites that were actually
self-contained, a total of ten in the building: these ten self-contained flats
are the earliest surviving in Melbourne.
However no architect was involved in the
design of the Majestic and it is not an interesting design, (except in its
arrangement, with balconies overlooking an open courtyard entered from a broad
entrance like an Italian monastery). Its 1912 five-storied verandah facing
Fitzroy Street
was mostly demolished and replaced with Moderne
glazing between brick piers in 1935, when it was all altered for conversion to a
private hotel.
There were also semi-detached house pairs
(duplexes) at 20 Gurner Street, St Kilda designed by
J.J Meagher and at Nelson Square, Simpson Street,
East Melbourne, a row of duplexes of one flat to each floor and The Maisonettes,
82 Vale Street, East Melbourne (two duplexes, one above the other). These were
all built in 1913 and the duplex at 245 & 245A Barkly Street,
St Kilda designed by Richardson and Wood, in 1914. These were either duplexes or
‘vertical duplexes’. It seems to me that none of these can really be described
as blocks of flats. From the 16th century Edinburgh tenements until the current
Building Code of Australia, a flat has been defined as (self-contained) houses
built on top of each other.
The Canterbury
which was built in mid-1914 and designed by significant architects H.W. & F.B.
Tomkins, is probably the earliest substantial block,
entirely of self-contained flats, in Melbourne.
The
Canterbury
Flats,
236 Canterbury Road,
St Kilda, 2002
The Canterbury
led the deluge: the predecessor of all of the tower blocks of flats in Melbourne.
For a miniature tower it is; its verticality proudly flaunted. Further, its
Arts and Crafts characteristics are the earliest in this style in St Kilda (12).
The Canterbury
was soon followed by other multi-storeyed flats: Southwold,
57 Acland Street
(1915, but only two flats, one on each floor), then 327-328 Beaconsfield Parade
(1915-16) by other important Edwardian architects,
Klingender & Alsop. These were built as a
pair of flats, one above the other, as a group, dressed in more fully developed
Arts and Crafts, as it emerged in St Kilda after the war. There were three
further St Kilda blocks of flats in 1917, despite the Great War.
A slightly larger block of flats is the three
storied Langham at 95 Grey Street,
built in 1919. The architect is not known, but its style is transitional
between Edwardian and the Inter-war Freestyle, with an exotic castellated
accessible roof, and full height railway viaduct-like round arches. Apparently,
accessible roofs were provided in flats such as here, (surely the earliest
example?) and at Summerland (15) in the next year, to comply with a City
of St Kilda
bye-law regarding open space requirement for housing.
Henry William Tomkins
and his brother Frank Beauchamp Tomkins founded H.W
& F.B. Tomkins Architects around 1894. A hundred
years later, in 1992 the firm, now Tomkins, Shaw and
Evans, (with Daryl Jackson Pty.Ltd.) completed one
of their greatest buildings: the Great Southern Stand at the MCG. Other than
the Melbourne Cricket Club, other important recurring clients have been the
Herald & Weekly Times and Myer.
The firm has always been aware of the latest
architectural developments in America,
from the early influence of H.H. Richardson and the ChicagoSchool,
well before Walter Burley Griffin arrived in Melbourne
from Chicago
(3). This was apparent initially in their design for the Victorian
Artists’ Society, 430 Albert Street (1893), by H.W. Tomkins
with Richard Speight which is comparable with the
Priory, (refer: 61 Alma Road).
Later commercial designs in Flinders Lane
by the Tomkin brothers included Metcalf & Barnard
(1901-02) at 145-149, the TomasettiBuilding
(1905-07) at 277-279, and the HigsonBuilding
(1913) at 125-127. The Centreway (Arcade) Building,
259-263 Collins Street (1911-12), the former Commercial Travellers’ Association,
318-324 Flinders Street and the former London Stores, 349-357 Bourke Street
(1924-25).
Perhaps the Tomkins
brothers’ most famous work, the Myer Emporium at
314-336 Bourke Street,
emerged as a Jazz Moderne approach. Various
regional shopping centres followed for Myer and even
the exquisite modernist bridge over Little Bourke Street (1963). All this work
is commercial; the Canterbury
is a rare excursion into domestic design for the firm.
No other work by the
Tomkins brothers in St Kilda has been identified, however the Heritage
Study’s authors think that the Rand flats
at 29 Marine Parade looks suspiciously like their work; however, the Canterbury
is most memorable. Very visible, approaching by train to St Kilda Station, it
is a corner building (not sited on a corner), clearly intended to be seen not
only from the station, but from the George Hotel, the Grey Street hill and
Fitzroy Street.
It is an idiosyncratic design: Edwardian
Classical Freestyle in red brick and cement render which
clads a compressed clutch of vertical elements, fragmented; a technique
more recently used by architects such as Nonda Katsalidis,
(11) to fragment the bulk of large buildings, to appear more dynamic,
slender and elegant in proportions. A bay window extends upwards as a cute
octagonal belvedere tower. Three quarter round corner balconies, now glazed-in,
are supported by stubby Ionic columns at the corner. The common stair is
concealed, to avoid a tenement appearance. The exterior and interior layouts are
intact.
Initial developer of the Canterbury
was Mrs Gurney for a cost of £1,531. In mid-1919 a new female owner Mrs M.
Wright commissioned the same architects to add a fourth storey, consisting of
two, two-roomed flats, and glazing the balconies and relocating the tower roof
to the higher level. But after the Great War, building materials were scarce
and expensive and the cost had escalated to £5,002 for the single floor only.
The tower has concrete mullions to its windows.
Just as observation decks were built on the
roof of flats in Toorak, towers were built on St Kilda flats such as the
Canterbury,
but also Belvedere (10), Aldershot
and I.E. Anderson’s
Avenue Court, Albert Park, to capture bay views.
Note:
Two other blocks built in 1914, whose plans are not known are: Victoria
House,
214-220 Clarendon Street
(eight possibly self-contained flats with a single entrance) and around the
corner, Clarendon House, Victoria Parade (unknown plan with single doorway). A
comparative study of the floor plans of each of the flats contenders mentioned
here would be extremely useful, in this analysis of
Melbourne’s
earliest flats.
References
Allom
Lovell & Associates.‘Fawkner Mansions.Submission to
Historic Buildings Council’. 1993.
City of St Kilda.
Building permits 2237 (12
May 1914)
and 3860 (12
April 1919),
both include plans.
National Trust
of Australia
(Victoria).National Trust Register No.B
7071.
Peck Robert,
von Hartel, Trethowan & Henshall
Hansen Associates. City of St Kilda.
Twentieth Century Architectural Study. 1992
(Unpaginated).
Sawyer, Terry.
Residential Flats in Melbourne.The Development of a Building Type to 1950.University
of Melbourne
1982.pp 39-41, 47 & 48, 75-78,102-110 & figs 27 & 28, 107 & 108.
Storey,
Rohan.‘Significant Flats in St Kilda’.Trust News.
May 1989. pp 18 & 19.
