Melbourne A'Beckett Street 217-219, Moss White & Co tobacco factory, later Gill Memorial Home for Men CAD 1984 sheet 31 005
Melbourne Central Activities District (CAD) Conservation Study 1984-5 survey images: approx 1200 Kodak colour negatives
See librarysearch.melbourne.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FUL...
GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDY
Statement of Significance
History
Mutual friends in the old country George Moss, Thomas Cherry and James White constituted the tobacco importing and manufacturing firm who commissioned Nahum Barnet to design this factory in 1888. The firm had started making cigars in 1864, having emigrated with the makings, and tobacco production began in 1877; no doubt inspiring the construction of this new six level brick factory.
Description
Appearing remarkably like a Salvation Army designed building, this red brick and stucco factory has the tall arched fenestration associated with later Barnet designs and the main stream of warehouse designs, commencing with Royston House in 1898. Rather than the Romanesque origin of this latter group, this building probably derives from the British Queen Anne interpretation of Italian Renaissance examples like S. Andrea at Mantua and S. Francesco Alla Vigna, Venice, which have tall arched fenestration usually below a parapet pediment and between giant orders. Absence of the foliated ornament to capitals and spandrels, and the oriel window bays, combined with the presence of the architrave, keystone and impost mouldings show the style difference from Barnet's later Romanesque revival designs. Despite these subtleties of ornament, the tall arched form seems archetypical for revivalist factory designs, needing large window areas associated with undivided internal spaces. The American Sullivan led influence may have simply added an embellishment to the continuation of an appropriate eclectic form for the purpose which perhaps places the Moss - White factory at the vanguard of the form's use in Victoria. The Barnet signature, shared with the nearby Spiers Crawford warehouse, is the long trailing consoles beneath the entrance pediment and its repetition in the joinery of the grand level windows. Another unusual ( possibly functional ) element is the bell - cote placed on the roof at the rear of the factory.
External Integrity
Glazing and the entry details have altered; the parapet was probably amended in 1929 and air units are new.
Streetscape
Shares face brick and stucco walling with buildings to east and west also the parapet form of 199 A'Beckett Street (c1930).
Significance
An early use of the tall arched form adopted almost universally in late Victorian and Edwardian periods for factories and warehouse ; the earliest known, near to original Barnet commercial / industrial design, and one of many to come, particularly for the tobacco industry ; the surviving tobacco factory of three grouped in this area; and, in its re-use, a relic of the world economic depression of the late 1920's and the Salvation Army's possibly single handed role in providing specifically for homeless man, in the inner city during this period.
Melbourne A'Beckett Street 217-219, Moss White & Co tobacco factory, later Gill Memorial Home for Men CAD 1984 sheet 31 005
Melbourne Central Activities District (CAD) Conservation Study 1984-5 survey images: approx 1200 Kodak colour negatives
See librarysearch.melbourne.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FUL...
GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDY
Statement of Significance
History
Mutual friends in the old country George Moss, Thomas Cherry and James White constituted the tobacco importing and manufacturing firm who commissioned Nahum Barnet to design this factory in 1888. The firm had started making cigars in 1864, having emigrated with the makings, and tobacco production began in 1877; no doubt inspiring the construction of this new six level brick factory.
Description
Appearing remarkably like a Salvation Army designed building, this red brick and stucco factory has the tall arched fenestration associated with later Barnet designs and the main stream of warehouse designs, commencing with Royston House in 1898. Rather than the Romanesque origin of this latter group, this building probably derives from the British Queen Anne interpretation of Italian Renaissance examples like S. Andrea at Mantua and S. Francesco Alla Vigna, Venice, which have tall arched fenestration usually below a parapet pediment and between giant orders. Absence of the foliated ornament to capitals and spandrels, and the oriel window bays, combined with the presence of the architrave, keystone and impost mouldings show the style difference from Barnet's later Romanesque revival designs. Despite these subtleties of ornament, the tall arched form seems archetypical for revivalist factory designs, needing large window areas associated with undivided internal spaces. The American Sullivan led influence may have simply added an embellishment to the continuation of an appropriate eclectic form for the purpose which perhaps places the Moss - White factory at the vanguard of the form's use in Victoria. The Barnet signature, shared with the nearby Spiers Crawford warehouse, is the long trailing consoles beneath the entrance pediment and its repetition in the joinery of the grand level windows. Another unusual ( possibly functional ) element is the bell - cote placed on the roof at the rear of the factory.
External Integrity
Glazing and the entry details have altered; the parapet was probably amended in 1929 and air units are new.
Streetscape
Shares face brick and stucco walling with buildings to east and west also the parapet form of 199 A'Beckett Street (c1930).
Significance
An early use of the tall arched form adopted almost universally in late Victorian and Edwardian periods for factories and warehouse ; the earliest known, near to original Barnet commercial / industrial design, and one of many to come, particularly for the tobacco industry ; the surviving tobacco factory of three grouped in this area; and, in its re-use, a relic of the world economic depression of the late 1920's and the Salvation Army's possibly single handed role in providing specifically for homeless man, in the inner city during this period.