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Grosvenor Chambers

Coordinates: 37°48′49″S 144°58′25″E / 37.81361°S 144.97352°E / -37.81361; 144.97352
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Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers on the right, with tower of One Collins Street rising behind
Grosvenor Chambers is located in Melbourne
Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers
Location within Melbourne
Grosvenor Chambers is located in Australia
Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers
Grosvenor Chambers (Australia)
General information
StatusCompleted
Location9 Collins Street, Melbourne
Coordinates37°48′49″S 144°58′25″E / 37.81361°S 144.97352°E / -37.81361; 144.97352

Grosvenor Chambers, at number 9 Collins Street, Melbourne, contained the first custom-built complex of artists' studios in Australia.

Initiation

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The owner was Edinburgh-born Charles Stewart Paterson (1843-1917) who with W. Davidson, and also in 1888, purchased for speculation the 'Bondi Aquarium and Pleasure Grounds' in Sydney.[1] He, in partnership with his brother James, had a high-end decorating business in Melbourne designing interiors for Kamesbrough in Brighton,[2] Government House, the Melbourne Town Hall, and the Parliamentary Library, and after his retirement from the firm in 1880 built Grosvenor Chambers. As one of the original members of the Working Men's College on its foundation in 1882 his interest in visual design inspired his fitting out the building as artist studios.[3] Another brother was the painter John Ford Paterson who sometimes exhibited with the Heidelberg School artists.

Construction

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Architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp designed the three-storey building in a neoclassical style, making a feature of three large arched windows at the first floor level below a row of five windows to artist studios of much smaller proportions in the top floor. Each window features recessed balustrades beneath impost mouldings and prominent keystones and Stawell freestone pilasters on the upper storey. The cement-rendered facade is broken by horizontal string courses below the overhanging cornice topped by a balustraded parapet.[4] Large windows beside the entrance at right at ground level were originally arched and offer commercial display. They have been substantially remodelled with changes of tenancy and purpose.

The building contractor W. Davidson who was then mayor of Richmond[5] completed construction for a cost of almost £6,000. The building, bearing on its parapet the date 1887, officially opened on 21 April 1888 with a 'smoke concert' attended by the Melbourne art world.[6]

Description

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CB Walker Studio, Grosvenor Chambers, Melbourne, 1888-1899. Saw-tooth skylights visible at roof level. Albumen print 23.9 x 19.7 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales

The upper floor consisted of five well-lit artists' studios with ante-rooms all provided with light from skylights with a southern elevation (to provide the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of a 'north light') and tall windows on to Collins Street; natural lighting designed "on principles laid down by Sir Joshua Reynolds" and by consultation with the first artists to occupy them; Tom Roberts,[7] James C. Waite, Louis Abrahams, and George Walton.[8]

The middle floor had space for a society costumier,[9] initially Mrs Eeles,[10][11] a fabric showroom and workshop, occupied from c.1910 by "Madame Masseran, Corsets Et Jupons"[12]

The ground floor housed the showroom for the Patersons' decorative arts business and doctors consulting rooms at the rear.[13]

The rear basement atelier was occupied initially by sculptor Percival Ball, constructed so that the downhill slope toward Flinders Lane placed his floor above the level of the adjoining Howitt Lane and created a clearance in the room of 7 metres, thus accommodating large works-in-progress. A wide doorway and window had a fanlight over them that was removable to provide an entrance to the Lane over 2m wide, and to the height of the room, for passage of large pieces of sculpture, such as the first he produced there, his "7 foot 2 inch" Sir William Wallace commissioned for 1,000 guineas[14] for the Ballarat Gardens.[15][16][17] The front of the basement, a spacious cellar, was lighted with Hayward's patent prismatic pavement lights.

Stained-glass windows over the staircase showing figures symbolising Sculpture, Painting, and Heraldic Work were by Brooks, Robinson, and Co.[5] whose work is also found in the Princess Theatre and who from this date employed most of Melbourne's stained-glass artists including William Frater.[18]

Contemporary response

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Bernard Hall (c.1926) The studio party, oil on canvas, 147.5 × 117.0 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, showing the interior of a Grosvenor Chambers studio

Contemporary reaction to the building and its pruprose was recorded in reports of its opening, such as that in the Australian Sketcher;

The Australian artist has only recently begun to assert himself, to come out of holes and corners and back places of the city, to take his high and proper place amongst the professions, and to beard the Philistine with a bold front [...] A little while ago it was a very difficult matter tor an artist to find a house. Pile on pile of brick and mortar was heaped up for the accommodation of any limb of the law who had been duly licensed by the courts to fleece mankind. The doctors took and held their own end of Collins street, and the artist had to be content with any hole or any corner where he could set up his easel and fix his modest plate to a back door. The beginning of the end of his troubles in that way has approached by the opening of Grosvenor-chambers, wherein he really is to be first considered. Grosvenor-chambers were opened on the 20th April. The enterprising proprietor, Mr. C. S. Patterson [sic], wished to make some little announcement of what he had done, and with the artists who have become tenants of his studios, issued invitations for, a 'smoke night'. It began about 8 o'clock. A hundred people had gathered by that time, and were ranging over the building, somewhat amazed, a few of them, to find an artist nearly as comfortably disposed as a bank manager, with all his wants anticipated and supplied. An ante-room nicely furnished for arriving visitors; a studio within, almost as rich in decoration and upholstery as a dentist's or photographer's room. The high south windows, which all day long flood the easel and the sitter's throne with light, darkened now, and only the gaslight showing the pictures on the walls.[19]

Artist occupants

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Unknown photographer (c.1890) Tom Roberts (seated) in his studio at Grosvenor Chambers with Arthur Streeton
Emmanuel Phillips Fox (1893-1894)  Portrait of my cousin, oil on canvas, painted at Grosvenor Chambers
Frederick McCubbin  (1893) Bush idyll / The Flute Player, oil on canvas119.5 x 221.5 cm. Private collection. Exhibited in a private viewing at Grosvenor Chambers May 1894[20]

Grosvenor Chambers saw Roberts in his role in developing an Australian school of art when he lived in Grosvenor Chambers while camping over weekends at Heidelberg, and when painting his "9 by 5 Impressions," and in the studio he painted portraits of Melbourne's leading intellectuals and works presenting its cultural and social life. Two of his major paintings of Australian life, Shearing the Rams[21] and The Breakaway were painted there.[22] On his 'Studio Wednesdays' he and other Heidelberg School artists opened their studios regularly,[23][24] to show work-in-progress to the public,[25] accounts of which appeared in April 1888;[26]

The number of people in Melbourne interested in art is large, if one may judge by the throng that climbed the four flights of stairs in the Grosvenor-chambers in Collins-street to reach Mr. Roberts's large and well-lighted studio. The ante-room leading to the studio was gay with winter flowers and aesthetic screens and hangings. Here afternoon tea was served to the visitors. In the studio were three examples of Mr. Roberts's art— a forest scene, in which a workman is employed in clearing away gum-tree stumps; a 'bit' of Sydney harbour, which, though well painted, gives one very little idea of the beauty of the place; and a study of a girl's head. A large well-painted bush scene, representing a bushman kindling a fire to boil the inevitable 'billy,' near his tent, while behind the man, the fire, and the tent rise the great blue-gum-trees in gloomy grandeur, that was a striking picture in the exhibition, was the work of Mr. Streeton, another Australian artist. Mr. F. McCubbin, a promising young landscape painter showed two canvases at this exhibition. Both represented 'bits' in the Australian bush, and in both the 'open-air feeling' was very well pourtrayed [sic]. Mr. McCubbin is also happy in his skies. He seems to have caught the idea of a typical Australian sky – the representation of lightness and transparency. Walton, an English artist, who has exhibited at the Royal Academy, showed two charming portraits at this exhibition.[27]

Their example prompted the artists C. Douglas Richardson, Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton to open their own studios in Gordon Chambers, Flinders Lane,[28] though Conder and Streeton left the country soon after, along with George Walton at Grosvenor Chambers.[29] Roberts also conducted a series of conversaziones like those in which he joined at the Buonarotti Club until 1887, inviting other artists to bring their newest French and other art journals for coffee, song and discussion "in true Bohemian style."[30][31] One such event in 1889 attracted two hundred guests including His Excellency the Acting-Governor William C. F. Robinson and Lady Robinson, "who expressed themselves as very pleased with the conversazione."[32]

Roberts too left the city, vacating his studio and selling off works including The Scrubcutter, in February 1892,[33] with his place taken by Arthur Streeton. Like other artist tenants, E. P. Fox continued to institute an open studio day after Roberts' departure, with a showing of his portrait of Mrs James Pirani (National Gallery of Australia)[34] in October 1893,[35] and Portrait of my cousin (National Gallery of Victoria)[36] in 1894.[37]

From the 1880s many other notable artists rented a studio in the building,[38] even after its auction[39] and sale in 1939 to investment company A. Gordon Allard and Co.[40] They included;

Others associated with the Heidelberg School, though not tenants, used Grosvenor Chambers for private showings of their work, as did Florence Fuller in 1890,[60] and David Davies with J. Ford Paterson, and Gordon Coutts in 1894.[20]

Notable photographer Wolfgang Sievers had rooms in the building from after WWII, as did Gordon De Lisle in the 1950s.

Heritage value

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Collins Street, near the corner of Spring Street, showing Grosvenor Chambers at centre soon after construction. Albumen silver photograph 14.0 x 20.0 cm. State Library of Victoria

The building was classified in 1981 by the National Trust which describes it as "an unusually late example of the transitional architectural style between the Conservative Classical Style and the Boom Style Classicism which characterises buildings of the 1880s."[4] With 61 Spring Street, 5-7-9 Collins Street frame a view of "one of Victoria's finest buildings," the Old Treasury Building, integral to the precinct at the east end of Collins Street and the intersection with Spring Street leading up to Parliament House. The Trust describes the buildings as "a unified group in terms of scale and mass whilst at the same time retaining sufficient variety of volume, skyline and architectural detail" and are "a foil to the early twentieth century buildings opposite which are the solution of that time to this singularly important precinct. The buildings are representative of the residential use which was the traditional land use of this end of Collins Street throughout the nineteenth century. The elaborate Boom Style design of Nos. 5 and 7 provides an important contrast to the restrained Conservative Classical design of No. 61 Spring Street, whilst No. 9 repeats the Conservative manner of 61 Spring Street, although constructed well after Nos. 5 and 7," and in this regard the building as of heritage value, though they rate its prime importance as being constructed specifically as artists' studios, no other building in Victoria being associated so closely with the Heidelberg School.[4]

Partial preservation

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Photograph of Grosvenor Chambers prior to demolition of its interior, 1977

The building was auctioned on November 18, 1970,[61] though artists continued to rent studios there until the mid-1970s, before a plan for an office tower replacing 5-9 Collins Street was proposed. The National Trust, which regarded the historic Treasury precinct as key parts of Melbourne's Victorian architecture, protested along with Dr. Virginia Spate and other stakeholders.[25] The CMI group failed to agree with the preservation council on a plan for development.[62]

Singaporean developer Jack Chia purchased the site in March 1980 for about A$2 million,[62] or A$215 per square metre,[63] and proposed a compromise development retaining Campbell House and a 9m (or one room) depth of the terraces at 5-9 Collins Street including Grosvenor Chambers at 9 Collins in which the studios in the front, and their skylit saw-tooth roof were preserved, with a tower rising behind. It was approved 'in principle' by the National Trust,[64] and the State Government, to assist and encourage the preservation waived land tax for ten years,[65] saving the Chia Group A$100,000 p.a.[62]

In 1979 and 1980 partner in the development Robert Peck worked with the National Trust to reach agreement on preserving and incorporating into the new structure elements of the existing buildings they saw as significant. Architectural historian, Allan Willingham, who questioned "the architectural fad of facade retention in urban redevelopment" considered Chia's development designed and built by Denton, Corker Marshall with Peck Von Hartel Trethowan "one of the few examples in the central business district where an old building has been successfully retained and substantially enhanced."[66]

The tower, known now as 1 Collins Street, was completed in 1984 was noted as one of the city's first postmodern buildings, and for incorporating traditional cement render and deep-set windows, and for its corner tower (then containing the apartment of developer Chia). In 1985 it won the Victorian Architecture Merit Award for new commercial buildings, the inaugural William Wilkinson Wardell Medal for the best building of the last three years in 1986, and in 2011, the Enduring Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter).[67]

References

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  1. ^ "Chit-chat". Melbourne Punch: 16. 31 May 1888.
  2. ^ "Kamesburgh House & Garden". Heritage Victoria. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  3. ^ "Personal". The Argus. 16 April 1917. p. 6. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  4. ^ a b c "National Trust Database: Grosvenor Chambers". Heritage Victoria. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  5. ^ a b "The Grosvenor Chambers Buildings in Collins-street". The Argus. 26 April 1888. p. 8. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  6. ^ "An Artist's Celebration". Daily Telegraph. 21 April 1888. p. 5. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  7. ^ "An Australian Artist: A Little Talk With Mr Tom Roberts". Melbourne Punch. 9 May 1889. p. 11. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  8. ^ Edquist, Harriet; Grierson, Elizabeth (2008). A Skilled Hand and a Cultivated Mind: A Guide to the Architecture and Art of RMIT University. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 9781921166914. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  9. ^ "Personal". Table Talk. 1 February 1895. p. 2. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  10. ^ "Advertising: Mrs Eeles". The Argus. 4 April 1888. p. 4. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  11. ^ "Society And Fashion". Australasian. 20 August 1892. p. 23. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  12. ^ Advertisement (1 November 1910). "Madam Masseran". The Lone Hand. 8 (43): xxvii.
  13. ^ "The Foresters New Banner". Ovens and Murray Advertiser. 4 November 1893. p. 6. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  14. ^ "The Bathurst Burr And The Rabbit Nuisances". Bendigo Advertiser. 4 May 1889. p. 4. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  15. ^ "Notes And Comments". Argus. 16 April 1888. p. 8. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  16. ^ "Chit Chat". Melbourne Punch. 2 May 1889. p. 11. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  17. ^ "New Statue For Ballarat". The Herald. 3 May 1889. p. 3. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  18. ^ Hughes, B. E. (2019). New Light on the Light of the World. Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, 22(2), 96-116.
  19. ^ "At An Artist's Smoke-Night". The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil: 71. 17 May 1888 – via Trove.
  20. ^ a b "Gossip". Melbourne Punch. 26 April 1894. p. 12. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
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  22. ^ "Topics Of The Day". Herald. 29 May 1890. p. 2. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  23. ^ "Ladys Letter: Mr Tom Roberts". Melbourne Punch. 12 July 1888. p. 13.
  24. ^ "The Last Moment". The Herald. 15 April 1889. p. 3. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  25. ^ a b Spate, Virginia (1 January 1977). "Review: Letters: *If No. 5 Collins Street could be saved from the wreckers we would have at least an idea of the scale of this once beautiful street°". The Age. p. 12.
  26. ^ 'Iris' (28 April 1888). "Private View At A Melbourne Studio". The Leader. p. 7. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  27. ^ "Melbourne Gossip (from our own correspondent) Melbourne, April 23". The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. 28 April 1888. p. 899. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  28. ^ "A Private View". Table Talk. 7 March 1890. p. 6. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  29. ^ a b "Mr. Tom Roberts". Table Talk. 16 May 1890. p. 8. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  30. ^ Taylor, Alex (2007). Perils of the studio : inside the artistic affairs of bohemian Melbourne. North Melbourne, Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publishing. ISBN 9781740971492.
  31. ^ "Social". Melbourne Punch. 21 June 1888. p. 13.
  32. ^ "Conversazione at Grosvenor Gallery". Table Talk. 24 May 1889. p. 12. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  33. ^ "Topics Of The Day". Herald. 13 February 1892. p. 2. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  34. ^ "E. Phillips Fox - Mrs James Pirani". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  35. ^ "News Of The Day". Age. 26 October 1893. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  36. ^ "E. Phillips FOX (1893-1894) Portrait of my cousin". National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  37. ^ "Friday, January 26, 1894". The Argus. 26 January 1894. p. 5. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  38. ^ Alex Taylor, Perils of the Studio: Inside the Artistic Affairs of Bohemian Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing & State Library of Victoria: North Melbourne, 2007, ISBN 978-1-74097-149-2
  39. ^ Advertisement (3 June 1939). "Sales By Auction: Wednesday, June 14. At Half-Past 2 O'clock. In The Auction Room, 37 Queen-Street. Valuable City Property, "Grosvenor Chambers, No. 9 Collins-St., Melbourne. Executors' Sale". The Age. p. 2.
  40. ^ "City Property Sold". Argus. 19 June 1939. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  41. ^ "Railway Prosecutions". Argus. 9 July 1892. p. 14. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  42. ^ "The Passing Show". Argus. 29 October 1892. p. 13. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  43. ^ "Mr. John Mather". Table Talk. 27 February 1891. p. 7. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  44. ^ "Melbourne Studios in the Eighties". The Age. No. 24, 519. Victoria, Australia. 11 November 1933. p. 4. Retrieved 8 June 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  45. ^ "About people". The Age. 16 September 1902. p. 4.
  46. ^ "Society and Fashion". Weekly Times. 2 December 1893. p. 10. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  47. ^ "Miss J. R. Price". Table Talk. 2 August 1889. p. 7. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  48. ^ "Miss Clara Southern,". Table Talk. 2 August 1889. p. 7. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  49. ^ "The Observer". Kyneton Observer. 6 August 1889. p. 2. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  50. ^ "Mr. Arthur Streeton". Table Talk. 15 May 1891. p. 6. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  51. ^ "Mr. Streeton's Exhibition". Age. 28 May 1891. p. 6. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  52. ^ "The Queen's Statue: An Artist's Suggestion". The Age. 13 February 1901. p. 5.
  53. ^ Hetherington, John (18 November 1961). "Australian Artists In Profile (2): Albert Tucker's Fight For Recognition". The Age. p. 18.
  54. ^ Tennyson, Patrick; McArdle, Brian (1 December 1965). "The Passionate Art Of Albert Tucker". Walkabout. 31 (12): 24–6. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  55. ^ "Mr Tudor Tucker's Studio". Melbourne Punch. 30 August 1894. p. 12. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  56. ^ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art. Fitzroy BC, Vic.: AUS Art Editions. p. 994. OCLC 608565596.
  57. ^ "Items of News: Agricultural Society". Traralgon Record. 21 July 1891. p. 2. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  58. ^ "Sundry Shows". The Bulletin. 9 (449): 7. 15 September 1888.
  59. ^ "Ladys Letter". Melbourne Punch. 18 April 1889. p. 11. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  60. ^ "Saturday, January 4, 1890". Argus. 4 January 1896. p. 7. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  61. ^ "Auction: Grosvenor Chambers (advertisement)". The Age. 17 November 1970. p. 18.
  62. ^ a b c Ellingsen, Peter (6 February 1981). "Land tax to be waived on historic buildings". The Age. p. 3.
  63. ^ Richardson, Michael; Elias, David (24 June 1981). "S-E Asia Chinese invest millions in Australia". The Age. pp. 1, 15.
  64. ^ Ellingsen, Peter (29 January 1981). "New plan retains old facade in Collins Street". The Age. p. 4.
  65. ^ Robinson, Paul; Fih, Barbara (14 September 1981). "State might lease part of Rialto tower block". The Age. p. 5.
  66. ^ Balendra, Jaya (4 June 1986). "Facadism: a front to hide the hole in our ideas?". The Age. p. 32.
  67. ^ "1 Collins Street". Heritage Victoria database. Retrieved 23 March 2023.