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REPCO OFFICES & LABORATORIES (FORMER)
Location26 DOONSIDE STREET,, RICHMOND VIC 3121 - Property No 167560 LevelIncluded in Heritage Overlay |
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Statement of Significance
What is significant? How is it significant?
The building, built c.1939 as an office and laboratories for the Russell Manufacturing Co., which later became Repco at 26 Doonside Street, Richmond is significant. It is a two storey Moderne style bichromatic brick building. It is approximately square in plan, with a curved corner at the northwest. The building is oriented north-west, and the composition of the main panels of brickwork is approximately symmetrical about a diagonal axis which runs through the corner entrance, which has a cantilevered concrete canopy. The north and west elevations are of face manganese brick, whilst large panels of cream brick give the appearance of wrapping around this, leaving a vertical strip of dark brown brick above the entrance. This corner element is decorated with a narrower vertical strip of horizontally-striped tapestry brickwork, and surmounted by three white painted vertical concrete fins. The north elevation features two bands of windows, each comprising three panels of multi-paned steel-framed windows with manganese brick spandrels and sills. These windows turn the corner to the east elevation; to their right are two vertically placed circular windows, probably to a staircase. The west wall of the building was once attached to a single-storey building which has since been demolished, with the exception of part of the front wall and cream brick parapet which adjoins No. 26.
The former Repco office and laboratory building at 26 Doonside Street, Richmond, is of local architectural significance of the City of Yarra.
It is architecturally and aesthetically significant as a particularly sophisticated example of a small building in the Moderne style, which exhibits an interesting composition of a limited palette of materials. It is thus distinctive for a building of its size and type. The demolition of other adjacent buildings has increased the aesthetic contribution of this building to an otherwise architecturally undistinguished industrial streetscape. (Criteria D & E)
Group
Manufacturing and Processing
Category
Industrial Office/Admin Building