EAST CAMBERWELL SUBSTATION

The East Camberwell Substation, 2B Warburton Road (part), Canterbury is significant.

How is it significant?

East Camberwell substation is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

The East Camberwell Substation is significant as one of four surviving substations, of near identical design at Seaford, Mentone and Caulfield East, constructed as part of the initiative to electrify the Melbourne metropolitan railway network from 1912. Following the allocation of sites for substations in 1914, the onset of the First World War delayed further progress in the rollout of the programme. Designed by 1920 and constructed between 1921 and 1922, the East Camberwell substation, along with the major substation at Jolimont railyards, formed one of two major substations on the Box Hill, Kew and Glen Iris lines. East Camberwell substation was designed to accommodate two 4,500 kilowatt rotary converters, which were subsequently switched on and the network electrified via the throwing of a switch at Jolimont substation at 2pm, 28 November 1922. Subsequent improvements at East Camberwell in 1933, including storm precaution works to isolate faults, further enforced its importance to the metropolitan network. (Criterion A)

East Camberwell Substation is architecturally significant as an example of stripped Interwar Classical-Revival architecture applied to a utilitarian building. Demonstrative of the scale and evolving quality of work being constructed by Victorian Railways (VR) under Chief Architect J.W. Harding, the building is representative as a greater architectural ethos emphasising the modernity, strength and progression of VR specifically and the City of Melbourne and State of Victoria generally during the early twentieth century. (Criteria D, E & H)

East Camberwell Substation is also significant for its reappropriation, by 1973, as the studio of the Victorian State Artist, Harold Freedman (1915-1999). A position unique both within the State of Victoria and the Commonwealth, Freedman produced his first official work as State Artist in the substation, the iconic 36.6m long and 7.32m high mural History of Transport. A realist oil painting executed on canvas and mounted on wood, the mural depicted the history of transport in Victoria from 1835 until 1935. Executed in three main sections and completed by Freedman and four assistants, the mural was commissioned by the State of Victoria in 1973 for the concourse of Spencer Street Station. Completed in January 1978, the mural was installed at Spencer Street Station later that year until its removal in 2004 upon demolition of the station buildings in lieu of the new Southern Cross station. The mural was reinstalled in the new shopping centre of Southern Cross in 2007. Freedman's next commission as State Artist, a large mosaic on the theme of regional history for the State Offices in Geelong is assumed to have also been executed at East Camberwell substation. (Criteria A & H)

Group

Utilities - Electricity

Category

Electricity Transformer/Substation