Swann House, a.k.a. Lyle House, is a historic high-rise building in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

, Australia.

Location

The building is located at 22 on William Street in the Central Business District of Melbourne.Swann House

Emporis Emporis GmbH was a real estate data mining company that was headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022. On 12 Sept ...

Melbourne Buildings: Swann House
/ref>Jonathan Chancellor

''Property Observer'', June 19, 2014

History

It was built in 1921 for the

State Electricity Commission of Victoria The State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV, ECV or SEC) is a government-owned electricity supplier in Victoria, Australia. It was set up in 1918, and by 1972 it was the sole agency in the state for electricity generation, electric power ...

, on the site where

John Pascoe Fawkner John Pascoe Fawkner (20 October 1792 – 4 September 1869) was an early Australian pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land (now called Tasmania), to sail ...

's house previously stood. It was designed by architect

Alfred Romeo La Gerche Alfred may refer to: Arts and entertainment *''Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series * ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne * ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák *"Alfred (Interlu ...

in the palazzo/classical style, with an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

edge, though others have described the style as "commercial palazzo form with restrained

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

detailing". The construction firm was Hansen & Yuncken. Two decades later, in 1948–1949, two more floors were added at the top of the building. As such it is now twelve stories () in height. In 2014 it wa
purchased by the Orion Group.
ref>

References

Buildings and structures in Melbourne City Centre Residential buildings completed in 1921 1921 establishments in Australia {{VictoriaAU-struct-stub