BUFFALO HOUSE
3-5 UNION STREET,, BRUNSWICK VIC 3056 - Property No 6129
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
Buffalo House at 3-5 Union Street, Brunswick, is a double-storey Moderne-style brick factory with a concealed gambrel roof, rows of multi-paned steel-framed windows and a distinctive entrance bay to one side incorporating projecting piers, a castellated parapet and a vertical strip window. The factory was erected in c.1942 as the joint premises of two companies engaged in the manufacture of cardboard boxes and associated products.
How is it Significant?
The former factory is of historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Moreland.
Why is it Significant?
Historically, the factory is significant for associations with the boom of industrial development in Brunswick during the later 1930s and early 1940s (AHC Criterion A.4). Although many such factories were erected in the area during that period, many have since been demolished or altered (AHC Criterion B.2). This examples remains as a representative and substantially intact example of its type (AHC Criterion D.2). Its modest scale contrasts with the larger and grander industrial complexes that developed in the area during the same period, and thus provides valuable evidence of the more specialised manufacturers who maintained their presence in Brunswick at the time.
Aesthetically, the factory is significant as an understated but substantially intact example of the inter-war Moderne style as applied to a factory building. Its block-like form, regular fenestration and bays of large steelframed windows are all typical of the era, while its entrance bay, with raised piers, castellated parapet, vertical strip window and cantilevered porch roof, remains as a distinctive and eye-catching element on an otherwise stark facade (AHC Criterion F.1). It is of especial note for its physical intactness. With the exception of some painted signage to the street facade, the exterior of the building is virtually unaltered. Located on a corner site with three exposed elevations, the factory remains a prominent element in the streetscape.
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BUFFALO HOUSE - Physical Description 1
Buffalo House is a double-storey Moderne-style brick factory on a corner site. It has a gambrel roof, clad in corrugated cement sheeting, concealed along the front (Union Street) and side (Little Gold Street) elevations by a low parapet with brick-on-edge capping and by a gabled parapet to the rear. The street elevations are virtually identical in their fenestration; each level has a row of large rectangular windows with concrete lintels, brick sills and containing steel-framed multi-paned fixed, pivot and hopper sashes. The spandrels between the window openings are in clinker brick, which forms a distinct contrast to the bands of red brick below and above. At each end of the Union Street facade are prominent rainwater heads with partially recessed rectilinear downpipes.
Otherwise, the building's distinguishing feature is the entrance bay at the extreme right end of its Union Street frontage. Defined by two projecting brick piers, this narrow bay rises above the parapet line to form a prominent vertical element, capped by a course of soldier bricks that project and recede to create a castellated effect. The verticality of the bay is emphasised by a tall opening, set back into a reveal of Roman bricks, which incorporates a doorway at the ground floor level and a strip window above. The window, which contains matching multipaned steel-framed sashes, is separated from the doorway by a thin cantilevered concrete canopy with moulded edges. The door lintel, just below the canopy, displays the partially-obscured remnants of some painted signage (circa late 1960s) that relates to a previous occupant: 386 928-0 M H FRANKS (VIC) PTY LTD 3 UNION STREET BRUNSWICK. The Union Street facade has been altered by more recent painted signage in the spandrel between the two rows of windows, which records the name BUFFALO HOUSE, and that company's logo.
A photograph of the building taken in the early 1951 by photographer Lyle Fowler (and how held in the Picture Collection of the State Library of Victoria) reveals that, with the exception of the aforementioned painted signage, the building has changed very little since that time.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moreland - Brunswick MAC Heritage Analysis and Review
Author: Context Pty Ltd
Year: 2007
Grading:
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