Cairo Flats, Fitzroy

Today I was able to tour the block of flats known as Cairo on Nicholson Street, Fitzroy as part of Open House Melbourne.

Designed by Best Overend the flats were constructed in 1936 in a U shaped around a large communal garden.

The block consists of 20 bed-sits and eight one bedroom units. The spaces are small with some built-in furniture however the complex originally included a communal dining room, an in-house meal service and a laundry service. The serving hatches placed at floor level outside each kitchenette are still in place.

Overend worked with Wells Coates in London and Cairo follows many of the principals employed in Coates' Lawn Road flats in Hampstead which had been completed two years earlier. The concept was to provide minimal bachelor flats at affordable prices.

We were able to visit one of the ground-floor bed-sits which had been recently renovated in keeping with those original design principles. The ground-floor flats each have a private garden. The units on the southern arm of the block face the internal communal garden which adds to the airy feeling of those units.

The first floor flats have access to the roof via concrete stairways including a most extraordinary cantilevered spiral at the centre of the black forming the bottom of the U.

And it provides a lovely view of the city oasis at Cairo.

Margaret Flats, Fitzroy

Cairo Flats, Fitzroy

In a recent email, Brian from the Fitzroyalty website expressed surprise that I hadn't written about a block of flats called Cairo in Nicholson St, Fitzroy and did I know of them.

I didn't have to think for long because I do know of them but the gardens are so overgrown that it is difficult to get a clear photo. He got me thinking though and I had a look at his post on Cairo from January 2009.

From my point of view the best part of Brian's article is the use of photos from the archives which show the flats soon after they were built and before the garden matured.

Then I read Philip Goad's article, Best Overend - Pioneer Modernist in Melbourne from Fabrications : The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Vol 6 published in 1995/6. It is a great read.

In 1931, in his early 20s, Best Overend went to London and worked for 18 months as Chief Draughtsman for Wells Coates. Returning to Melbourne in 1933, Overend, having passed his Royal Institute of British Architech exams while in London, joined the architectural firm of H Vivian Taylor and G A Soilleux.

Overend designed Cairo in 1935 as a U-shaped block of minimum flats with a communal dining room. The block also had two communal laundries on the roof and garages at the rear of the property.

Certainly there is an interesting connection to the Lawn Road Flats which Wells Coates designed in 1932 when Overend was working for him in London.

The outstanding feature of the Cairo flats is the cantilevered stairs at the centre of the block at the bottom of the 'U'.

My photo does not do them justice but there is an excellent archival photo in Brian's aforementioned artice which really shows how astounding these stairs are.