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PROFESSIONAL CHAMBERS
110-118 COLLINS STREET MELBOURNE, Melbourne City

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Victorian Heritage Register
PROFESSIONAL CHAMBERS SOHE 2008
PROFESSIONAL CHAMBERS SOHE 2008
PROFESSIONAL CHAMBERS SOHE 2008
professional chanbers collins street melbourne front view sep1999
professional chambers collins street melbourne front sign detail sep1999
professional chambers collins street melbourne window detail sep1999
professional chambers collins street melbourne entrance detail sep1999
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Statement of Significance

'What is significant?

The Professional Chambers building in Collins Street was designed for the Trustees of the Independent Church by Beverley Ussher of the firm Ussher and Kemp. The building was finished in 1908. The three storey red brick structure with attic is styled in a mode eclectically derived from Romanesque, Gothic, Elizabethan and Queen Anne Revival architecture. The construction is of tuck-pointed face red brick decorated with rendered cement dressings and a terra cotta tile roof. The picturesque roof line with steep gable ends and tall clustered chimneys, the oriel windows and central round arch Romanesque entry with foliated decoration together produces a bold facade to Collins Street. The design reflects Ussher's preoccupation with the Picturesque domestic revival in Victoria and has links with the so-called Queen Anne Revival movement in England.

How is it significant?

The Professional Chambers building is of architectural significance to the State of Victoria.

Why is it significant?

The Professional Chambers building is architecturally significant as a picturesque composition drawing on an eclectic range of sources in a street that had traditionally associated itself with a more reserved classicism. It is an unusual commercial work of the architect and the building's picturesque form is emblematic of Beverly Ussher's more abundant domestic oeuvre.

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    • History

      PROFESSIONAL CHAMBERS - History

      Contextual History:
      The partnership of Ussher and Kemp produced some of Merlbourne's most distinctive domestic architecture during the Federation period. Their Arts and Crafts inspired houses were exemplars of the so-called Queen Annes style which was characterised by Marseilles tiles, red brick, turned timber verandah posts, casement windows and dynamic picturesque rooflines of chimneys, dormers and finials.
      Beverley Ussher was born in Melbourne in 1868. He visited England and Europe in 1887-88. When he returned to Melbourne he went into partnership with the English Arts and Crafts architect Walter Butler, whom he had met in England. The partneship lasted until 1893. Ussher entered into partnership by Henry Kemp in 1899, specialising in domestic architecture, of which Dalswraith in Kew is considered their most accomplished design.
      (From Philip Goad, Melbourne Architecture, 1999, p.243)
      Associated People: Dr H Ham; (Tenant)
      Ussher & Kemp;

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