Toorak/South Yarra Branch Library

Please refer to the Heritage Victoria place record and the individual attachments to this record (search for VHR# H2463)

The Toorak/South Yarra Library at 338-344 Toorak Road, South Yarra, designed by Barry Patten of Yuncken Freeman, constructed in 1972-73.
Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include:

The replacement Toorak Road entrance ramp and stairs, and surrounding vegetation are not contributory to the heritage place.

The Toorak/South Yarra Library at 338-344 Toorak Road, South Yarra is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the City of Stonnington.

The Toorak/South Yarra Library, South Yarra has strong associations with the provision of community services in South Yarra by the local municipal council and was one of the earliest municipal library services established in the State. Constructed in the late twentieth century as a purpose-built library, the building remains highly intact to its period of construction to clearly illustrate the important development of community educational services in South Yarra – and the City of Stonnington more broadly – in the twentieth century (Criterion A).

Constructed to a design by Yuncken Freeman Architects Pty Ltd, the Toorak/South Yarra Library, South Yarra, represents an accomplished and elegant example of the Late Postwar Modernist style applied to a public building. The refined detailing, including the minimalist box-like form, flat roof, elevated form creating a “floating” appearance, expressed mullions creating regular bays and black-painted steel and tinted glass cladding, presents as a highly distinctive and well-resolved minimalist civic building (Criterion E).