Winster

What is Significant?
Winster at 17 Tintern Avenue, Toorak is a 1927 double-storey interwar Mediterranean style house with white-painted brick walls. It was built for and designed by important Melbourne architect Rodney Alsop.

Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):

- The original external form, materials and detailing of the building.
- The relatively high level of integrity, despite modern alterations.
- The domestic garden setting, including aspects of the original garden design by Alsop, such as the brick wall along the side path and the curved concrete pond (if it survives).
- The front fence and wrought iron gate.
- The absence of modern vehicle accommodation in the house's front and side setbacks.

Modern elements, including the loggia infill glazing, do not contribute to the significance of the place.

How is it significant?
Winster is of local architectural significance to the City of Stonnington.

Why is it significant?
Winster is architecturally significant as a fine and largely intact interwar Mediterranean style house (Criterion D). It demonstrates architect Rodney Alsop's concern for developing a national, climatically appropriate style of architecture through a fusion of the Spanish vernacular idiom and British Georgian revival formality. The house's plain, largely unadorned wall surfaces, the low unobtrusive roof form and the simple massing point to the emergence of a modern design aesthetic in the 1930s.

Winster derives some additional significance from its association with architect Rodney Alsop, an early and influential advocate of Mediterranean style architecture (8.4.3 - Architects and their houses, Criterion H).

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House