SA Heritage Register Nomination form

To help your nomination be successful, please fill out this form with as much information as possible. Feel free to expand the answer fields as much as you require or append information to the form. It is important that you attach images and a map of what you are nominating by email or by fax. Please note that places which have been nominated during past three years will not be reconsidered by the South Australian Heritage Council unless you can provide significant new information not provided through the previous nomination and assessment. For assistance with this form you may contact: Your local historical society or heritage adviser may be of assistance OR you may telephone an assessment officer in Heritage South Australia on (08) 8124 4960.

A. Nominated Place

1. Name Name of Place / Object: Australian Eagle Insurance Building Any other or former name(s): not known Is the place already on another heritage list?

not known

2. Location Street Address: 28 Grenfell St, corner of James Place Suburb / Town: ADELAIDE Post Code: 5000 Local Council Name: CITY OF ADELAIDE Land Description: (if known)

Title:

Volume:

Folio:

Parcel Type:

Parcel No:

Plan Type:

Plan No:

Section:

Hundred:

GPS Location/s: (If known)

Longitude / Easting / X

Latitude / Northing / Y (Datum = )

3. Ownership Name of Owner(s): Contact person: (if different from owner explain relationship)

Postal Address:

Phone Number: Ownership History:

4. Nominator (your details) Your Name/s:

Organisation/Position: Daytime Phone: Fax: Postal Address:

Email Address:

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B. Description

5. Description of nominated place or object Description of the nominated place or object and its current condition:

This elegantly-proportioned small office building introduced current and modern ‘Mies van der Rohe-style’ multi-storey design principals to Adelaide. It is the best local example of this building type reducted to its design components of concrete slab and frame, a natural anodized aluminium curtain wall, grey glass glazing system and a flat, non-expressed roof element.

Are you aware of any modifications or additions to the place or object? Can you provide dates for these changes?

The entrance foyer has been modified – a life-size sculpture of an Australian Eagle weighing 80lbs, sculpted by Mr Bela Angyal, a Melbourne specialist in metal sculpture, has been removed by a subsequent tenant. Other retail tenancies and office floors would have received various fitouts from their respective occupants, as would be expected in any commercial office building. None of it’s fit-out would have be likely to be undertaken by these architects, apart form floors occupied The front small plaza area has now been partially built-on by Krispy Kreme on the west side out to the property line. The overhang described along James Place has been partially built on to the face of the structural concrete columns, which have been subsequently faced with ceramic tiles. Both of these additions have increased the nett lettable areas of their tenancies at the expense of the loss of public space which the project originally gave to the public domain.

Do you believe there may be historical items under the ground? Should an archaeological investigation be considered?

No

Date you inspected the place or object: Various visits and walk-pasts over the years. Have you had any contact with the Owner? No Current use of the place or object: Seven office levels above a ground floor Foyer accessed from

Grenfell Street, with four or five retail tenancies fronting James Place.

Original or former use(s): As above

Are there any current or long term threats to the nominated place or object?

Not known

Name of Builder: A V Jennings Industries (Aust) Ltd

Any other information:

This is the first purpose-built Eagle Star Insurance Co. Ltd office building in Australia for their own and their tenants use.

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C. History

6. Origins and history Years of Construction: Start: 1967 Finish: August 1968 Name of Designer / Architect: Yuncken Freeman Architects Pty Ltd (Melbourne) in

association with Dean Berry & Partners (Adelaide)

History of the nominated place or object: Designed 1967, built 1968, occupied since for it’s intended use.

Historical sources used to support your nomination: Please attach copies of pages from publications or newspaper articles as appropriate.

• Building And Architecture Feb/Mar 1969 • Yuncken Freeman architectural drawing 676/A3

Ground Floor Plan (part)

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D. Heritage Significance

7. Statement of State Significance - Why is the place or object important to South Australia? It is of State heritage significance because the project concisely demonstrates something very unusual in South Australia: a small and very high-quality local version of an international design trend, crystalized into a small urban building, elegantly realised, beautifully proportioned, distilled, it is the essence of the International School/Modernism caught precisely as it was transitioning to other forms of expression, particularly by both international, interstate and local architects. The locally-derived framed buildings of the 1970’s and 1980’s became known as expressing a more Brutalist style, strongly featuring concrete frames and pre-cast concrete cladding panels, with smaller, panel-based windows, which this building avoids. It’s style strongly and simply interprets the Seagram Building in New York by Mies van der Rohe, dating from 1958. Particularly, it mirrors that building’s placement of the continuous external vertical glazing bars at approx. 1800mm centres, projecting outwards, with the glazing located at the back (inside) face of the ‘I’ shaped aluminium section profile, probably sized 200mm x 50mm, with a flush glazing window panels and a low spandrel panel height of some 50mm thickness and a low window cill height of about 900mm, with an approx. 2400mm high window frame, creates about a 3.3m floor to floor height. This creates a totally flexible and naturally well-lit building interior. The longer, James Place elevation is 15 glazing bays long, the shorter, Grenfell Street façade is 5 bays wide, both are 7 floors high with the upper façade projected on both faces to create an elegant ‘floating box’ of built form, also separated, as it’s southern face is recessed, via the lift/services shaft from it’s eastern neighbour. A significant (south-west) street corner detail is the ‘negative junction’ of two of the glazing sections at right angles to each other, again a direct design reference to the Seagram Building. The floor plate is only lit on 2 sides - the west and south, the north is a party wall the east is the service core. It maximizes its site usage for nett lettable area to maximize rental income. The plan has a very compact floor plate, with 2 WC’s per floor, a rectangular service core, lifts at the public entry, southern end, 2 escape stairs and utilizes a large ‘negative joint’ (to it’s abutting eastern neighbour, the Pearl Assurance Building) by setting the lift/services core wall plane back from the property boundary by some 3m. These strategies maximize it’s nett lettable area. The building also possesses a beautifully proportioned and handsome 5 bay (about10m) wide by 7 bay (about 23m) high south (Grenfell Street) elevation. Some interior details are of immense architectural interest as they represent the technological advances of the time being made, particularly when an interstate architecture firm and builder collaborate to produce a new building in a smaller, more remote market, such as Adelaide. These occasions did not come up all that often, so they are very worthy subjects of study and understanding when they do. In Melbourne in 1972, Yuncken Freeman undertook the next and larger Eagle Insurance Building in an almost identical style, directly interpreting this building. This firm is one of Australia’s most significant firms of architects from the 1960/70’s, 80’s, and 90’s with work around Australia and public and civic work in the young capital of Canberra. The Building and Architecture article makes clear reference to the ceilings of the building being possibly the first local use of a concealed air grille air-conditioning supply and return system, which used the light fittings as return air, with supply being from the ceiling itself via a ’narrow grid section’. The lights also spanned as thin strips across the whole width of the building, so they were a very integrated design and can be seen in the external corner photograph. I believe that they occurred at the same centres and frequency as the window mullions. Structurally, the small east/west dimension of the building enabled a clear span concrete slab floor with inset western columns and a cantilevered slab edge supporting the very light curtain wall façade system. The minimum wall thickness here again maximizes the nett lettable area.

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The direct entrance from Grenfell Street to the Foyer is set back and sheltered from sun and rain by the cantilevered overhang, which forms a small sheltered public space, liaising between the building’s entrance doors and the footpath itself starting from the property line, an area of some 40sqm. Shelter is also provided along the recessed western ground floor James Place façade of some 30sqm. These floor paving of these areas was finished in ‘attractive terrazzo’, as advised by Building and Architecture. Today, it is very possible and hugely enjoyable to appreciate the building’s strong and direct streetscape presence of quiet dignity, untrammelled by the city around it. It’s a gem of urban massing, good neighbourliness, material selections, technology, efficiency, civic obligation and duty – it’s everything that a modern urban city building should be and it so deserves our recognition, our design accolades, our support in it’s older age and it deserves a very public appreciation, for its quiet and dignified civic job, so well done for over 50 years.

8. Significance Criteria The South Australian Heritage Places Act 1993 lists seven criteria by which places are assessed as ‘State significant.’ Please tick the criteria you feel the place demonstrates and explain your reasons.

It demonstrates important aspects of the evolution or pattern of the State's history.

Yes – captures precisely the global design trends from the USA from the late 1950’s and early 1960’s

It has rare, uncommon or endangered qualities that are of cultural significance.

Yes – the architectural design language is a local development direct from New York within 10 years of its American development, an original new office building for an Australian insurance company, their first of which occurred in Adelaide.

It may yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the State's history, including its natural history.

No – but it is a cornerstone project in the understanding of the State’s architectural development history.

It is an outstanding representative of a particular class of places of cultural significance.

Yes – the small city office building. It vitally contributes to a varied Grenfell Street streetscape and would be held in high regard by members of the general public, who would not believe that it is a 50 year old building.

It demonstrates a high degree of creative, aesthetic or technical accomplishment or is an outstanding representative of particular construction techniques or design characteristics.

Yes – all areas of it’s detailed design resolution speak of its simple, direct and fundamental good sense and elegance, it’s restrained style and composure, all reflecting a calm and respected international design precedent.

It has strong cultural or spiritual associations for the community or a group within it.

No

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It has a special association with the life or work of a person or organisation or an event of historical importance.

Yes - It is the local example (possibly the only one, not sure) of the work of a very significant interstate, and national design firm who undertook the design of many of the1960’s and 1970’s key and important public and private buildings.

E. Additional Information

9. Images/Maps/Diagrams/Site Plans A full range of images including maps, site plans, and photographs will help your nomination. Please provide:

• a clear outline of the place or object being nominated within any maps or plans provided – all images have come from Google maps ‘Streetview’

• high quality images of the place or object (please list the total number of images being provided) • the subject of each image - the building • the date each image was created – all 25 September 2018 • the author of each image, -Streetview • the copyright holder of each image (if known) - na

PLEASE REFER TO THE 9 ATTACHED STREETVIEW PHOTOS AND 6 PAPER FILES

The South Australian Heritage Council is committed to transparency in relation to the listing process and wishes to enhance public confidence in the nomination, listing and decision-making process. The Council’s policy is to make nominations for State heritage listing and submissions on provisional entries publicly available via webpage or to interested parties. The Council will adhere to the Privacy Principles and your name and personal details will not be released. I, nominate THE AUSTRALIAN EAGLE INSURANCE BUILDING, 28 GRENFELL STREET, ADELAIDE to be heritage listed. The information I/we have provided is correct to my/our knowledge. Your Signature/s Date: 27 September 2018 A heritage officer may contact you to discuss aspects of the nomination.

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Nomination Form Checklist Please check that your nomination includes:

A clear indication of the location of the place or object (including map/s). Where a number of features are nominated, show the location of each and/or a boundary surrounding the significant elements of the site.

A history of the place or object explaining important aspects relevant to the nomination. This should generally help support arguments of cultural significance.

A clear description of the nominated place or object/s. A statement of significance and indication on how the place or object satisfies one or more

of the significance criteria. A heritage officer may contact you to discuss aspects of the nomination.

Email: DEWHeritage@sa.gov.au Post: Executive Officer, South Australian Heritage Council Department for Environment and Water GPO Box 1047, Adelaide 5001

From: Michael PilkingtonTo: DEW:HeritageSubject: HERITAGE NOMINATION FOR THE AUSTRALIAN EAGLE INSURANCE BUILDING, 28 GRENFELL STREET ADELAIDE SA 5000Date: Thursday, 27 September, 2018 12:20:56 PM

dear Heritage SA

I am re-sending the text files as they have been too reduced to be legible in my previous email. I hope this works out better. regards MichaelMichael Pilkington | Director | FRAIA | Phillips/Pilkington Architects | www.phillipspilkington.com.au | tel 08 8239 9000 | mob 0408 332 421