SHOPS
488-500 MT ALEXANDER ROAD, ASCOT VALE, MOONEE VALLEY CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The row of seven shops at 488-500 Mt Alexander Road, Ascot Vale, are significant. The shops were built in 1922 for owner Adolphe Frederic Seeley. The builder is recorded as Walter Benjamin Plaisted and, considering the sophistication of the composition, it is likely that his son, architect Arthur Plaisted, was the designer.
The shops are of face brick with cement-render dressings and are united in a cohesive composition by the shared parapet which has a shallow arched pediment over the central two shops, and a panel element below a shallow step above the two outermost shops. The shops share a continuous cantilevered verandah which returns at Warwick Street as does the shopfront of No. 488. The five shops at Nos. 488-496 retain their original shopfronts.
The modern shopfronts to Nos. 498-500 are not of significance.
How is it significant?
The shops are of local architectural/aesthetic significance to the City of Moonee Valley.
Why is it significant?
The shops are of architectural/aesthetic for their skilful design that masses and expressed the row of seven as a single architectural composition by way of modulating its high and continuous parapet, and also for including the cast-cement consoles whose unusual geometric form suggests the influence of the Jazz Moderne. Nos. 488-496 are of aesthetic significance for the retention of high-quality original shopfronts with details including leadlight highlight windows that are arched over the shared ingos to shops Nos. 490-492 and 494-496, and to the corner ingo of No. 488, cuprous metal-framed shop windows, black and pink tiles to the stallboards and piers with pink ceramic vents, and tiny white and black hexagonal tiles to the ingo floors. (Criterion E)
The shops are of architectural historical interest for their possible association with prominent interwar architect Arthur Plaisted.
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SHOPS - Physical Description 1
The building at 488-500 Mt Alexander Rd comprises a row of seven single-story Stripped Classical shops constructed in 1922 on the south-east corner of Mt Alexander Road and Warrick Street. The shops are constructed in red brick with cement-render dressings, visible as a shared parapet above a continuous cantilevered verandah.
The high brick parapet is modelled into three main sections creating a cohesive composition for the row. The central section of the parapet, over the middle two shops, is raised to create a shallow arched pediment with a line of modillions beneath the render coping. This pediment is framed by cast-cement consoles whose unusual geometric form suggests the influence of the Jazz Moderne. The two end shops have a recessed panel to their parapet with a shallow step above.
The row is distinguished by the high level of details shown in the surviving shopfronts. The original window glazing includes highlights of leaded glass, which are arched over the shared ingos to shops Nos. 490-492 and 494-496. A corner arch sits above the splayed entry of No. 488 on the corner. The shopfront and verandah of this shop return for one bay around the Warwick Street corner. The three ingos retain tiny white hexagonal tiles with black detail. At the base of the metal-framed windows is a stallboard finished with tiny square-format black tiles with pink stripes between rows and pink vent bricks.
The shops at Nos. 492-494 are very shallow in depth as they were built in front of the 1863-64 former Essendon and Flemington Borough Hall, whose front half is visible inside the shops.
The southern five shops are highly intact, while the two northern ones (Nos. 498-500) have suffered unsympathetic alteration. This includes the overpainting of the face brickwork parapet and removal of the original shopfronts.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moonee Valley - Moonee Valley Heritage Study
Author: Context Pty Ltd, 2015
Year: 2015
Grading: LocalMoonee Valley - City of Moonee Valley Stage 1 Heritage Gap Study
Author: Context PL
Year: 2013
Grading:
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