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St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church
Location106 HOTHAM STREET ST KILDA EAST, GLEN EIRA CITY LevelIncl in HO: Individually Significant |
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church, at 106 Hotham Street, St Kilda East, is a cream brick church comprising a gable-roofed hall-like nave with a flat-roofed front foyer wing that
incorporates a projecting covered walkway. Erected in 1953-54 to a design by leading Presbyterian architect K Murray Forster, the building represented the culmination of several
decades of fundraising for a congregation that had occupied the site, in a series of ‘temporary’ buildings, from 1916.
The significant fabric is defined as the exterior of the entire building, including the original stained glass windows.
incorporates a projecting covered walkway. Erected in 1953-54 to a design by leading Presbyterian architect K Murray Forster, the building represented the culmination of several
decades of fundraising for a congregation that had occupied the site, in a series of ‘temporary’ buildings, from 1916.
The significant fabric is defined as the exterior of the entire building, including the original stained glass windows.
How is it significant?
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church satisfies the following criteria for inclusion on the heritage overlay schedule to the City of Glen Eira planning scheme:
- Criterion E: Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics
- Criterion F: Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.
Why is it significant?
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church is significant as an excellent and remarkably intact example of an early post-WW2 church in the newly emerging modernist style. With its
simple expression of a hall-like nave, low gabled roof, projecting walkway and stark brick walls with varied fenestration and virtually no applied ornament, the church represented a
bold departure from the established pre-WW2 convention where designers of churches felt obliged to reference historicist detailing (such as buttresses and arches) associated with the traditional ecclesiastical styles. Forster’s building, entirely devoid of such allusions, anticipated a new approach to church design that would become the norm in the later 1950s and 1960s. (Criterion E)
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church is significant for its creative achievement in taking inspiration from modernist church architecture that K Murray Forster had seen during a
recent European trip, completed just six months before finalising his working drawings. While contemporary accounts of his building broadly acknowledged these Continental
sources, noting the influence of recent church architecture of Holland and Switzerland, a specific single precedent has been identified in the eerily similar Swiss Reformed Church at Zurich-Balgrist (Hans & Kurt Pfister, 1950-52). St Margaret’s Church, the unusual design of which generated an uncommon degree of comment in the daily and architectural press, is thus notable as an example of a Melbourne architect directly introducing progressive European influences into the local architectural scene. (Criterion F)
simple expression of a hall-like nave, low gabled roof, projecting walkway and stark brick walls with varied fenestration and virtually no applied ornament, the church represented a
bold departure from the established pre-WW2 convention where designers of churches felt obliged to reference historicist detailing (such as buttresses and arches) associated with the traditional ecclesiastical styles. Forster’s building, entirely devoid of such allusions, anticipated a new approach to church design that would become the norm in the later 1950s and 1960s. (Criterion E)
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church is significant for its creative achievement in taking inspiration from modernist church architecture that K Murray Forster had seen during a
recent European trip, completed just six months before finalising his working drawings. While contemporary accounts of his building broadly acknowledged these Continental
sources, noting the influence of recent church architecture of Holland and Switzerland, a specific single precedent has been identified in the eerily similar Swiss Reformed Church at Zurich-Balgrist (Hans & Kurt Pfister, 1950-52). St Margaret’s Church, the unusual design of which generated an uncommon degree of comment in the daily and architectural press, is thus notable as an example of a Melbourne architect directly introducing progressive European influences into the local architectural scene. (Criterion F)