As with flats and houses from this period in other parts of Melbourne different colour bricks are used as highlights. There is a line of dark bricks on the low wall and columns surrounding the property. Also on the facade of almost at the bottom of the upper and lower storey windows, at the top of the windows and on the chimney.
You may also have noticed the curved wall around the entrance and the stairwell constructed completely of dark manganese bricks that make this building unique in Carlton North, possibly all of Carlton, Melbourne or perhaps even the whole world.
City of Yarra Review of Heritage Precincts 2007, Graeme Butler and Associates, p291
Can't say I have seen those bricks before. A special order? It would be interesting to research.
ReplyDeleteYou are quite right. I spent the 1950s in Carlton, only a decade after these flats were completed, and have never seen a stairwell built of dark manganese bricks. It looks wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I think the manganese bricks are commonly used for highlighting features as in the front wall of these flats but I don't recall seeing such a large section built using them.
ReplyDeleteHelen, you give me ome confidence in my statement with your endorsement and I agree, it looks wonderful.
Funnily enough, you often see those black bricks in London, alongside the more traditional buff coloured ones.
ReplyDelete10 Downing Street is all black bricks.
That's interesting Jonathan. Thanks for the info. Do you know of any that mix the two colours in large blocks like Maller's flats?
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