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Mission To Seamen Building

Other Name The Mission to Seafarers Victoria Inc. Location 717 Flinders Street,, DOCKLANDS VIC 3008 - Property No B4588 File Number B4588 Level State

[1/3] B4588 Mission To Seamen [2/3] B4588 Mission To Seamen [3/3] B4588 Mission To Seamen

Statement of Significance

During 1916, Walter Richmond Butler designed a new Mission to Seamen to replace premises in Siddeley Street, which had been resumed by the Harbour Trust during wharf extensions.
He designed the complex using a mixture of styles, one of which was the Spanish Mission Revival which had become active in America during the 1890s. Appropriately the chapel and bell tower took on this style, whilst the administration, residential and recreational building adjoining shows the influence of C. A. Voysey's domestic architecture, with its projecting gable, pepper pot chimneys and three adjoining oriel windows.
Lady Stanley, wife of the Mission's patron Governor Stanley, laid the foundation stone for both of the above sections of the complex in November 1916. Both were completed by late 1917 whilst the stupa-like gymnasium was finished soon afterwards.
The complex is a milestone in both the introduction of the Spanish Mission style to Melbourne and the initiation of England's most recent approach to domestic architecture which was to continue in Walter Butler's residential designs into the 1920s.
The buildings are near to original externally and possess some notable interiors such as the chapel, the internal courtyard and loggia, the main hall and lobby and the mysterious gymnasium.
Classified: 05/02/1981