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Royal Australasian College Of Surgeons & Forest Landscape Fountain by Stephen Walker

Location

250-290 Spring Street, (corner Lonsdale, Nicholson), MELBOURNE VIC 3000 - Property No B4078

File Number

B4078

Level

State

[1/2]
B4078 Royal Aust College of
[2/2]
B4078 Stephen Walker Fountain

Statement of Significance

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons,
Designed by Leighton Irwin and Roy Stevenson and built by J.C. Taylor; opened in 1935 and awarded the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Street Architecture Medal in 1937. This monumental Neo-Grec style building on a prominent site and visible from all sides has had various sympathetic alterations and additions.
Classified: 05/10/1978
Revised: 03/08/1998
The Forest Landscape Fountain by Stephen Walker.
The fountain, completed in 1969, is of State significance for aesthetic and historical reasons.
Aesthetically it is of great importance as it is an excellent, relatively early example of the artist's work in an organic style, which, with variations, he has made the basis of most of his work. The fountain is composed of a series of forms that skillfully evoke growth, plants, rocks and flowing water, without directly imitating nature.
Historically the fountain is a perfect example of the organic style in its most direct form, a style which was very popular in the 1960's and 70's, though only in vogue for a relatively short-lived period amongst Australian sculptors.
Even though Stephen Walker has carrid out a great number of public commissions throughout Australia, Forest Landscape is his only public commission in Melbourne. The only other commission in Victoria is in a church at Scoresby.
Classified: 02/08/1999

Group