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Former John Batman Motor Inn

Other Name

Ambulance Officers' Training Centre

Location

69 Queens Road,, MELBOURNE VIC 3004 - Property No B6433

File Number

B6433

Level

State

Statement of Significance

The Ambulance Officers' Training Centre is of State significance as representing a new building-type of its period and as the product of two significant but disparate architectural firms of the era. In the 1960s, motels were supplanting hotels as preferred accommodation and were being built in the outer suburbs. The John Batman, as its name implied, combined features of both hotel and motel and was built in an inner residential area. The firm of Bernard Evans & Partners was retained to prepare the design and obtain all necessary permits. The principal of this firm was a former Lord Mayor and a significant figure in local government politics for much of the post-war period. He is credited with the introduction of separate titles for apartments. Early in the construction stage of the project his firm was replaced by the firm of Grounds Romberg & Boyd - towards the end of a ten year old partnership of three famous individuals. Robin Boyd substituted blockwork for bricks, introduced his own style of fenestration but retained the inherited concrete frame. He adapted it to accept a spectacular arched roof which covered the lift overrun and other roof-mounted equipment. This bold gesture was a rare attempt in the early 1960s to inject a memorable visual image upon a building, suggestive of the re-assessment of symbolic imagery which was to occur in Melbourne's urban architecture in the 1970s and 1980s. At the centre of the roof space a two-level "honeymoon" suite was placed. By the time the building was completed in 1962 the designers had become Romberg & Boyd and the transformation of Queens Road into a commerical precinct was under way. Before its present use the building served as a bank officers' training centre.
Classified: 17/03/1993

Group

Education