Year     1934-1936

Architect Bates, Smart & McCutcheon

Presentation By the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Cr. G.A.W. Coles, on 28/3/39

Jury Leslie M. Perrott [Vice President of RVIA], Percy Everett [Chief Architect of PWD], J. S. MacDonald [Director of NGV], W. R. Dean [Art Inspector Education Department], Geo. R. King, Marcus W. Martin, Charles E. Serpell, Edward F. Billson, Arthur C. Collins, John F. D. Scarborough.

References RVIA Journal January 1937, p184, pp182-199, RVIA Journal April 1939, pp36-38

This award represented the first time the Street Architecture Medal was awarded to a building outside the City of Melbourne

Description of project

The building was the first such award given outside city of Melbourne, and possibly the first convincing Modern-styled church in Victoria. The monumental design, which is grimly sombre and of an ecclesiastical nature, demonstrates a departure from Gothic, Byzantine or Classical revival models. Its stripped Classical Moderne front with the Art Deco style wrought-iron gates and grillwork in gold and black are also suggesting that the design could be a derivation from contemporary American Beaux Arts Moderne examples of the temple.
With a general intention to produce simple expression and not of any traditional style or 'moderne' indication, the whole scheme is finished in a simple manner. Externally, the massing of overlapping cubes, with a clear placement of various doors and windows, is austere and abstract. With the exception of three modelled panels above each of the main entrance doors, there is no ornament or features of any kind that breaks its surface. The cream-toned bricks add on to the dignity of the building. Internally, simplicity is in the plain walls, plain ceiling and smooth plaster, painted to a pale amber-brown toning. Elements that bring excitement to this simplicity will be the louvered ceiling, the side windows, and the great central rostrum screen.

Jury's comments

The significance with the design is that it demonstrates how an architectural dignity can be achieved with simplicity of massing, well-proportioned voids and the judicious placing of appropriate enrichment. A successful balance between elimination and decoration, the design suggests an answer to the problem to a modern church without resort to traditional ecclesiastical motifs. Attention was drawn to the front elevation that centres in three large vertical openings featuring glazed decorative wrought iron screens. A sense of unity with the design is achieved with the use of cream-toned bricks throughout the exterior, even to the cornices and ornamental features over the doorways. The large plain cream coloured surfaces being relieved with horizontal recessed bands at regular intervals.