Century Building, Melbourne

Today saw the second Melbourne Open House with 32 buildings open to the public for free. Personally, there were not many Art Deco buildings on the list but I did pop into the T&G Building, 271 Collins St (formerly Head Office of the National Bank of Australasia), The Donkey Wheel Building and Melbourne City Council House 2 (CH2).

I would have liked to have seen the Russell Pl substation but the queues were too long and I had a football match to get to.

Likewise with the Manchester Unity queue stretched halfway along Collins St but then I had seen it last year and then subsequently had the board room to myself when I photographed it for Robin Grow's book, Melbourne Art Deco.

I was very pleased to get in to see Council House 2. It is a 6 star green building and it was very interesting to here the 15 minute presentation on how the building conserves energy through passive heating and cooling as much as possible. The Melbourne Council also try to make the best use of the electricity and gas that they do use through the use of eco-technology. They also harvest water from the roof and have an on-site water treatment plant which takes balck water from the sewer in Collins St and treats it to drinking water level so it can be used to flush toilet and water plants.

But the best part of CH2 was getting into the roof garden which, in one corner, overlooks Swanston St giving eye-level views the towers of Manchester Unity (1932) and the Century Building (1938-40), both designed by Marcus Barlow.