St James' Church and Hall

St James' Parish Hall of 1922, with extensions in 1932 by Williams and North architects, and the Church of 1957 designed by Bogle and Banfield architects, corner of Burke Road and High Street Glen Iris significant.

How is it significant?

St James' Parish Hall and Church is of State historic and architectural significance.

Why is it significant?

The Parish Hall and Church of St James' established on the present site after the boundaries of the parish were realigned in 1917 demonstrates a commitment to be located at the centre of the new parish. (Criterion A)

The parish hall is of social significance for its varied and extensive role in providing for both religious and secular uses. Built partly as a result of donations from parishioners in 1919 and again 1932, the hall demonstrates a central and important place in the life of the parish. (Criterion G)

The parish hall is significant as a hybrid structure of Arts and Crafts design with construction of reinforced concrete. It demonstrates an unusual blending of a historical design with innovative construction methods. As a building by Williams and North is demonstrates the particular interest in reinforced concrete by Alexander North whose practice in Tasmania had undertaken major commissions featuring this relatively new form of construction. (Criteria E & F)

The Parish Hall is significant for its high degree of integrity externally, featuring unpainted cement render finishes, window designs of multiple casements, exterior doors, and an external wall light fitting.

The 1957 church is an outstanding example of a modern building designed for worship, and it demonstrates a number of strong architectural ideas of the modern movement in its design. These include the cuboid form with flat roof and sheer walls with a band of highlight windows at the top of the wall, segregating the roof from the walls. The steel structure is of interest for the elongated proportions of the horizontal and vertical members of the frame and for the way in which this is separated from the wall planes, demonstrating the segregation of structure form the enclosure of space.

The concrete block screens (now removed) were an important feature of the design, and their loss has impacted on the original design intent. The east wall of coloured glass, although designed and built with great craftsmanship, is a major alteration to the design of the church and does impact upon the integrity of the interior.

The interior has a particularly impressive proportions demonstrated by the main space (nave) and the white steel columns dividing the it from the side chapel. The daylighting of the interior is achieved though strategically placed large panes of glass, which although originally designed to be reeded and translucent, are now of clear float glass.

Many original architectural details remain including the circular door pushes and pulls, some reeded glass partitions at the entry, the pendant light fittings and the semi-circular metal screen at the baptistery. St James is significant as the only known church work of Bogle and Banfield and displays stylistic similarities in their work for Korowa Girls' school in the concrete block screen walls. (Criteria B & E)

Group

Religion

Category

Church