The Princes Gate Towers were a set of disliked twin

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

tower blocks, located at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets in the

Melbourne central business district The Melbourne central business district (colloquially known as "the City" or "the CBD", and gazetted simply as Melbourne) is the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of the 2021 census, the CBD had a population of 54,941, and is ...

, Australia. They were designed by architects Leslie M. Perrott and Partners and completed in 1967. They were partly occupied by the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria, leading to them also being known as "the Gas & Fuel Buildings". They were demolished in 1997 to make way for Federation Square, the

mixed-use development Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

and public space that now occupies the site.

Background

The Jolimont Railway Yards, that occupied the southern edge of the Hoddle grid, were considered for redevelopment many times throughout the early to mid 20th century. In 1963, Victorian premier Henry Bolte announced that the

State Government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

was to sell the air-rights over a small portion of the railyards closest to Flinders Street, up to Swanston Street, which was occupied by the Princes Bridge railway station.Brown-May, A. and Day, N. (2003). ''Federation Square'', South Yarra, Vic: Hardie Grant Books, pp 20 The £5 million project would feature two 15-storey office blocks, along with a public plaza and a new entrance to the station. The new development would become the "gateway" to the city, and was to be known as Princes Gate. Leslie Perrot and Partners were chosen as project architects and the development was funded by Princes Gate Pty Ltd, jointly owned by

Lend Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (),

and Oddenino's Property and Investment Co of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Construction was completed in 1967. The Victorian Employees Federation leased 12 floors in the East tower, while the Gas and Fuel Corporation leased 10 floors in the West tower. The buildings housed a total of of office space, split level parking for 186 cars, and of retail space on the ground level.

Architecture

The towers were designed in the postwar corporate

International Style The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...

, by Leslie M Perrott & Associates. The lead architect on the project was David Simpson,Telephone interview with David Simpson by Rohan Storey, 9 January 2020 developing the complex design for a large three storey podium containing car parking, with retail spaces that faced onto Flinders Street, and a new access to the station platforms. The development also featured a raised public plaza that occupied the important Flinders/Swanston intersection corner, designed to allow an open vista to

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

and also function as a public square that was raised up from the noise and traffic of the streets below, which Simpson later felt was not the most successful part of the design. The towers were 17 storeys high and reached . They were constructed with brown bricks from the East Burwood brickworks, and featured vertical strips of aluminium-framed windows. The office floors were punctuated by a regular grid of structural columns spaced apart. The ground floor retail spaces development housed a supermarket, ANZ bank, clothing stores, laundromat and the notable music store, Central Station Records. The buildings were constructed over the still-functioning Princes Bridge station, the terminus of the Epping and Hurstbridge lines since 1910. The station's separate identity and name was lost in 1980, when it was merged into Flinders Street station as platforms 14, 15 and 16.

Public reception

The towers elicited mixed reactions from the general public when first unveiled. They were appreciated by some as

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

architectural icons, but many regarded the towers as eyesores, and criticised their size and placement. The towers were considered to have cut the city off from the river and also detracted from the views towards St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street from the entry to the city along St Kilda Road and Princes Bridge from the south. An '' Australian Women's Weekly'' article from 1969 expresses the general public sentiment about the towers at the time: :''"Once the graceful spires of St. Paul's Cathedral dominated the southern entry to Melbourne. In 1967, the ultra modern twin towers of the princes gate complex raised their lean, unornamented 17 storeys to rob strollers on the banks of the Yarra of their traditional view."''

Demolition

Following the

privatisation Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

of the Gas and Fuel Corporation in 1995, Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett announced in 1996 that the Princes Gate towers were to be demolished to make way for a new arts complex and civic hub. By that time, they were generally seen to be an eyesore, and their demolition was welcomed. The towers were demolished floor by floor in 1996 and 1997,Whitlock, F. (9 December 1996) "Demolition Days". ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'', pp 3 and what became known as Federation Square was built from 1997 to 2002.

References

{{coord missing, Victoria (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 1997 Demolished buildings and structures in Melbourne International style architecture in Australia Office buildings completed in 1967 1967 establishments in Australia 1997 disestablishments in Australia