Name: Lind House Hermes Number: 199892 Page | 1 Recommendation of the Executive Director and assessment of cultural heritage significance under s.32 of the Heritage Act 1995 Name Lind House Location 450 Dandenong Road Caulfield North, City of Glen Eira Hermes Number 199892 Heritage Overlay Number HO154 Interim control. Expiry date 31 July 2018. Lind House (2017) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RECOMMENDATION TO THE HERITAGE COUNCIL: • That the place NOT be included in the Victorian Heritage Register under Section 32 (1)(b) of the Heritage Act 1995. • The Heritage Council may wish to consider exercising its powers under s42 (1)(d)(i) of the Heritage Act 1995 to refer the recommendation to the City of Glen Eira for consideration for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the Glen Eira Planning Scheme. STEVEN AVERY Executive Director Recommendation Date: 22 September 2017
Transcript
Name: Lind House Hermes Number: 199892
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Recommendation of the Executive Director and assessment of cultural heritage significance under s.32 of the Heritage Act 1995
Name Lind House Location 450 Dandenong Road Caulfield North, City of Glen Eira Hermes Number 199892 Heritage Overlay Number HO154 Interim control. Expiry date 31 July 2018.
Lind House (2017)
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RECOMMENDATION TO THE HERITAGE COUNCIL:
• That the place NOT be included in the Victorian Heritage Register under Section 32 (1)(b) of the Heritage Act 1995.
• The Heritage Council may wish to consider exercising its powers under s42 (1)(d)(i) of the Heritage Act 1995 to refer the recommendation to the City of Glen Eira for consideration for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the Glen Eira Planning Scheme.
STEVEN AVERY Executive Director Recommendation Date: 22 September 2017
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This recommendation report has been issued by the Executive Director, Heritage Victoria under s.32 of the Heritage Act 1995. It has not been considered or endorsed by the Heritage Council of Victoria.
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EXTENT OF NOMINATION
Date that the nomination was accepted by the Executive Director 9 August 2017 Written extent of nomination All of the place known as 450 Dandenong Road, Caulfield North, as outlined by the bold red dashed line on the attached diagram. Nomination extent diagram
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RESPONSE SUMMARY It is the view of the Executive Director that this place should not be included in the Victorian Heritage Register for the reasons outlined in this report. The information presented in this report demonstrates that the Lind House may be of potential local significance, rather than State level significance. Heritage Council may wish to refer the recommendation and submissions to the relevant planning authority for consideration for an amendment to a planning scheme; or determine that it is more appropriate for steps to be taken under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 or by any other means to protect or conserve the place.
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RECOMMENDATION REASONS REASONS FOR RECOMMENDING INCLUSION IN THE VICTORIAN HERITAGE REGISTER [s.34A(2)] Following is the Executive Director's assessment of the place against the tests set out in The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Thresholds Guidelines (2014).
CRITERION A Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION A
The place/object has a CLEAR ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life in Victoria’s cultural history.
Plus
The association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.
Plus
The EVENT, PHASE, etc is of HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, having made a strong or influential contribution to Victoria.
Executive Director’s Response
The design and construction of freestanding houses in middle-ring metropolitan suburbs during the decades following WWII is a process of historical importance that has made a strong and influential contribution to Victoria. The Lind House is a place which has a clear association with this process and this is evident in the physical fabric of the building exterior and interiors, and in documentary resources.
Criterion A is likely to be satisfied.
STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION A
The place/object allows the clear association with the event, phase etc. of historical importance to be UNDERSTOOD BETTER THAN MOST OTHER PLACES OR OBJECTS IN VICTORIA WITH SUBSTANTIALLY THE
SAME ASSOCIATION.
Executive Director’s Response
The Lind House is an illustrative example of an architect-designed freestanding house, which the available evidence suggests was built in 1954-55.
However, an association with the process of the design and construction of houses such as this can also be equally well understood in any number of houses in other middle-ring metropolitan suburbs in Melbourne and across the State.
Criterion A is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.
CRITERION B Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION B
The place/object has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life of importance in Victoria’s cultural history.
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Plus
The association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.
Plus
The place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, being one of a small number of places/objects remaining that demonstrates the important event, phase etc.
OR The place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, containing unusual features of note that were not widely
replicated OR
The existence of the class of place/object that demonstrates the important event, phase etc is ENDANGERED to the point of rarity due to threats and pressures on such places/objects.
Executive Director’s Response
The Lind House is an example of a postwar Modernist residence.
Many similar houses remain to demonstrate the development of Modernist-style residential architecture in Victoria following WWII, particularly the ongoing application of this style as it developed during the mid to late 1950s. The Lind House is not a rare, uncommon or endangered example of its class of place.
Criterion B is not likely to be satisfied.
CRITERION C Potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria’s cultural history. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION C
• oral history, relating to the place/object indicates a likelihood that the place/object contains PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of
historical interest that is NOT CURRENTLY VISIBLE OR UNDERSTOOD.
Plus
From what we know of the place/object, the physical evidence is likely to be of an INTEGRITY and/or CONDITION that it COULD YIELD INFORMATION through detailed investigation.
Executive Director’s Response
The Lind House does not have the potential to yield information that is not currently visible or understood (such as archaeological information) that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria’s cultural history.
Criterion C is not likely to be satisfied.
CRITERION D Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION D
The place/object is one of a CLASS of places/objects that has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, important person(s), custom or way of life in Victoria’s history.
Plus
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The EVENT, PHASE, etc is of HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, having made a strong or influential contribution to Victoria.
Plus
The principal characteristics of the class are EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object.
Executive Director’s Response The Lind House is an example of postwar Modernist residential architecture. It has a clear association with the historically important process of design and construction of freestanding houses in middle-ring metropolitan suburbs during the decades following WWII – a process which has made a strong and influential contribution to Victoria.
Many of the principal characteristics of Modernist residential architecture are evident in the physical fabric of the Lind House, including its broad-eaved butterfly roof, timber-framed full height window walls and stone random-rubble cladding. The house also exhibits postwar Modernist detailing and finishes such as the navy blue colourback glass window spandrels, white-painted steel pipe columns, the white and navy blue-striped rendered lintels and projecting walk-in wardrobe box, and interiors featuring a steel and timber open-tread staircase, and bespoke timber joinery and built-in furniture.
Criterion D is likely to be satisfied.
STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION D
The place/object is a NOTABLE EXAMPLE of the class in Victoria (refer to Reference Tool D).
Executive Director’s Response The Lind House cannot be described as a notable example of postwar Modernist residential architecture as defined by ‘Reference Tool D’ of The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Threshold Guidelines. The Lind House does not display the principal characteristics of its class of place in a way that allows easy understanding or appreciation of that class. It contains a collection of postwar Modernist style elements, but its integration of these elements does not present as finely resolved. The loss of areas of its original fabric – including all of its kitchen and upper-storey bathroom joinery, fixtures and fittings – has also reduced the range and quality of its characteristics to the degree where the Lind House cannot be said to be fine, highly intact, influential or pivotal.
Criterion D is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.
CRITERION E Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION E
The PHYSICAL FABRIC of the place/object clearly exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics.
Executive Director’s Response The Lind House does clearly exhibit aesthetic characteristics, particularly those associated with postwar Modernist residential architecture. It incorporates many elements of the design language and vocabulary that were common in European or US East Coast influenced architect-designed houses of its time.
Criterion E is likely to be satisfied.
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STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION E
The aesthetic characteristics are APPRECIATED OR VALUED by the wider community or an appropriately-related discipline as evidenced, for example, by:
• critical recognition of the aesthetic characteristics of the place/object within a relevant art, design, architectural or related discipline as an outstanding example within Victoria; or
• wide public acknowledgement of exceptional merit in Victoria in medium such as songs, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, publications, print media etc.
Executive Director’s Response Although the Lind House has been and still is appreciated and valued by appropriately-related disciplines and by the wider community, there is no available evidence of it having received wide public acknowledgement in Victoria of its exceptional merit. Its aesthetic characteristics have not received critical recognition within a relevant art, design, architectural or related discipline as an outstanding example of 1950s-era Modern domestic architecture within Victoria.
Criterion E is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.
CRITERION F Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION F
The place/object contains PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that clearly demonstrates creative or technical ACHIEVEMENT for the time in which it was created.
Plus
The physical evidence demonstrates a HIGH DEGREE OF INTEGRITY.
Executive Director’s Response The integrity of the Lind House is good-to-fair. However, the physical evidence at the Lind House demonstrates construction techniques and a wide range of the stylistic features that were used in many similarly-scaled houses of the mid-1950s period. Moreover, the detailing of these features in several locations within and outside the house has resulted in poorly-resolved junctions of surfaces, materials and finishes. The Lind House does not demonstrate a high degree of creative or technical achievement for the time in which it was created.
Criterion F is not likely to be satisfied.
CRITERION G Strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. This includes the significance of a place to Indigenous people as part of their continuing and developing cultural traditions. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION G
Evidence exists of a DIRECT ASSOCIATION between the place/object and a PARTICULAR COMMUNITY OR CULTURAL GROUP.
(For the purpose of these guidelines, ‘COMMUNITY or CULTURAL GROUP’ is defined as a sizable group of persons who share a common and long-standing interest or identity).
Plus
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The ASSOCIATION between the place/object and the community or cultural group is STRONG OR SPECIAL, as evidenced by the regular or long-term use of/engagement with the place/object or the enduring
ceremonial, ritual, commemorative, spiritual or celebratory use of the place/object.
Executive Director’s Response The Lind House does not have a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group. Criterion G is not likely to be satisfied.
CRITERION H Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history. STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION H
The place/object has a DIRECT ASSOCIATION with a person or group of persons who have made a strong or influential CONTRIBUTION to the course of Victoria’s history.
Plus
The ASSOCIATION of the place/object to the person(s) IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object and/or in documentary resources and/or oral history.
Plus
The ASSOCIATION:
• directly relates to ACHIEVEMENTS of the person(s) at, or relating to, the place/object; or
• relates to an enduring and/or close INTERACTION between the person(s) and the place/object.
Executive Director’s Response The Lind House is associated with its architect Anatol Kagan (1913-2009). The projects designed by Kagan during the 1940s, 50s and early 60s when he practiced in Melbourne form part of a broader theme of European-born and trained émigré architects who made an important contribution to the local postwar architectural scene. On the available evidence, however, Kagan’s contribution to the course of Victoria’s cultural history cannot be described as strong or influential.
Criterion H is not likely to be satisfied.
ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE [s.34A(2)(d)] The Lind House is a good and reasonably intact example of a purpose-built and well-appointed house designed by a professionally active European-trained émigré architect working in 1950s Melbourne, but it does not possess the cultural heritage values, qualities or rarity that would elevate this place to a threshold of State significance.
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RELEVANT INFORMATION
Local Government Authority City of Glen Eira
Heritage Overlay Yes: HO154 Interim control. Expiry date 31 July 2018.
Other Overlays Parking Overlay (PO2-3 – ‘Student Housing in Specific Areas’)
Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register No
Other Listings No
HISTORY
Anatol Kagan and his work
Anatol Kagan (1913-2009) was born in St Petersburg to parents who were members of the Russian intelligentsia. His father was the educator and publisher Abram Saulovich Kagan (1885-1983), a prominent figure in the revolutionary Menshevik faction of the Social-Democratic Labour Party. In 1922 following their expulsion from Russia the Kagan family moved to Berlin where in 1932 Anatol enrolled in the Technische Hochschule Berlin, completing his architectural studies and receiving a Diplom-Ingenieurs in 1937.
In March 1938, with war imminent, the Kagan family left Germany. Kagan’s parents and sister moved to Brussels, then migrated to New York where Abram successfully continued his career as a publisher. Anatol Kagan instead went first to London, working as an architectural assistant in the city office of Ernest Schauferberg, before migrating to Melbourne in early 1939. Kagan soon found short periods of work in a series of local architecture firms, and then was employed by Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) as its in-house architect until 1944. After this he began the first of a few roles at the Commonwealth Department of Works & Housing. During the 1940s Kagan also undertook some private architectural commissions in partnership with Yury (‘George’) Blumin and Albert Victor (‘Bert’) Young before in 1949 establishing his own practice, which he named Anatol Kagan and Associates.
Kagan’s associates in this practice included George Blumin, Rainsford (‘Ray’) Barnard-Brown and William Linden Robert (‘Bill’) Miller. During the following 12 years they designed at least 45 luxury houses – particularly in the inner-eastern suburbs of Kew and Toorak – many of which were for self-made émigré businessmen who like Kagan had fled Europe in the 1930s to seek a new life in Australia. During these years other projects designed by Kagan included four factories, nine apartment blocks, two shop fitouts, a war memorial, and a pre-school. Working in association with architect Ernest Fooks, from the mid-1950s Anatol Kagan and Associates also masterplanned the Burwood campus of Mount Scopus War Memorial College and contributed to the design and documentation of several of the College’s realised buildings.
Most of Anatol Kagan’s architectural commissions were rectilinear Modernist compositions, often with protruding bays and timber-mullioned window walls shaded by deep eaves. His preferred medium was masonry, often brick (face-brick or rendered), alternating with stone and timber cladding. High-quality joinery and built-in furniture were typical inclusions in his houses, usually fabricated by fastidious émigré craftsmen, with Romanian-born designer and craftsman Schulim Krimper frequently engaged for this role.
In 1956, Kagan also began to work on an outline and the first notes for a planning study for Leningrad (formerly St Petersburg, the city of his birth), a project which was to occupy him for the rest of his life. In
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this he appeared to find an outlet for his communist-inspired views of urban design that otherwise received little sympathy in Australia. In the late 1950s Kagan began formal study within the post-graduate course in Town and Country planning at Melbourne University. The University granted Kagan a diploma in Town & Regional Planning in May 1962, and he was admitted to the Australian Planning Institute in October 1963.
Kagan also prepared a submission with the required extensive documentation for the 1956 Sydney Opera House competition. When Jørn Utzon was announced the winner in early 1957, Kagan was incensed and began a protracted campaign against the Utzon design, writing letters to Sydney newspapers and politicians, including the New South Wales State premier Joe Cahill. In 2006, Kagan’s entry for the competition was prominently displayed at the exhibition celebrating the building’s 50th anniversary.
Fortified by his studies in planning and seeking work that he felt would be more ‘socially useful’, in 1961 Kagan re-configured his Melbourne practice to continue under the direction of young graduate architect Peter Lyall. Kagan then moved to Sydney and began working in the NSW Public Works Department (PWD). While there he initially worked on the designs of secondary schools, before acting in charge of design for the smaller and more focused PWD’s State & Psychiatric Hospital Section from 1962 onwards. In this latter role among many projects he designed the City Morgue and Coroner’s Court building (1971) on Parramatta Road in Glebe. Kagan then accepted a role as a consultant for the Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs, designing his last major work, the classified underground Communications Centre in Parkes, ACT (1977).
Kagan retired in about 1974, but continued working privately on his St Petersburg/Leningrad planning project, corresponding with Russian officials and visiting Russia in connection with it during 1968, 1975, 1979 and 1986. In 2003 he expanded his scheme to incorporate a polder system for flood control along the Neva River, a programme of historic reconstruction and a planned new urban city centre. However, his sight deteriorated later that year and he grew too frail to continue any further with the project that had occupied him for almost five decades.
Design and construction of the Lind House
The house at 450 Dandenong Road, Caulfield North was built in 1954-55 for Polish émigré textile manufacturer Leo Lind and his wife Dorothy. Upon arrival in Australia in early 1947, Lind (ne Jehuda Lajb Lindwaser) declared his occupation as ‘merchant’. By the end of that year, he and his wife had started their own business, the ‘L Z Trading Company’, working from their private address in St Kilda East. Within a few years, the couple had entered into partnership with two fellow émigrés to establish Lind’s Trading Company, manufacturers and importers, with city premises at 6a Elizabeth Street. In 1952, having lived in Australia for the requisite five years, the Lindwasers applied for naturalisation and at the same time changed their names to Leo and Dorothy Lind. During the 1950s their business interests broadened with the establishment of a textile manufacturing firm, Lind’s Textile Ltd, which later operated from Flinders Lane.
It is not certain how Leo and Dorothy Lind came to engage Anatol Kagan as their architect, although it is likely that they were aware of his reputation as one of the most sought-after architects to Melbourne’s postwar Jewish community. Ownership of the site at 450 Dandenong Road was transferred to Leo and Dorothy Lind on 27 April 1954. The City of Caulfield Rate Book for 1955-56 records that the house on this site was completed by 29 November 1955. At that time known as 62 Dandenong Road, the property was rated as an ‘eight-roomed brick house’ with a Net Annual Value of £230.
Although it was not published at the time, the completed house attracted public attention due to its large scale, unusual form – typifying what was at the time described as Kagan’s ‘upside down house’ design approach – and its prominent siting on one of Melbourne’s major thoroughfares. The house remained in the Lind family’s ownership for nearly four decades. Dorothy and Leo were still residing there up until their deaths (in August 1983 and May 1984, respectively), following which it passed to their eldest daughter Margaret. Another couple then bought the house in 1992 and occupied it until 2006. When it came up for sale that year the Lind House featured in architect Neil Clerehan’s Melbourne Weekly property column of 19
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April 2006. In this article Clerehan admitted that he was not certain who the house’s designer was, stating only that ‘the architects could have been Blumin & Kagan’. Media reports also suggest that the house was carefully maintained by its subsequent ‘fashion designer’ owner during the years in which she lived there until its most recent sale in early 2017.
CONSTRUCTION DETAILS
Architect name: Anatol Kagan Architectural style name: Postwar Modernist Builder name: Not known Construction started date: 1954 Construction ended date: 1955
VICTORIAN HISTORICAL THEMES 06 Building towns, cities and the garden state 6.3 Shaping the suburbs 6.7 Making homes for Victorians 09 Shaping cultural and creative life 9.3 Achieving design and artistic distinction
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
The Lind House is a two-storey butterfly-roofed Modernist freestanding house. The house is sited centrally within a trapezoidal-shaped block of land. The block’s area is approximately 843 sq.m (0.21 acres) and has a frontage of approximately 19.5m to Dandenong Road on its north boundary. The Lind House’s principal living areas, study and four of its five bedrooms are on the upper storey, and the lower storey contains an entry foyer and powder room, the fifth bedroom, a laundry, and a tandem garage. Viewed from Dandenong Road, the north-facing elevation’s more embellished upper storey visually dominates the lower storey. This elevation is asymmetrical, with a projecting bay to the left (east) side – accounting for approximately one-third of the north elevation’s total east-west width – that incorporates a white-painted garage roller door at street level under a further-projecting rendered and painted rectilinear element above. The right (west) portion of the façade contains stone random-rubble clad walls in a lower storey undercroft, and at the upper storey a full-height window wall supported by white-painted steel pipe columns.
The Dandenong Road elevation exhibits a range of details and finishes. Cream-coloured face brickwork clads the wall to the east of the garage door and extents around the corner to the east elevation. The undercroft walls feature the same face bricks and random-rubble stone cladding, and this stone also clads the two-storey wall area along the west-facing side of the façade’s projecting bay. The undercroft’s soffit is lined with clear-lacquered timber boards. The upper storey’s window wall comprises a rectilinear pattern of fixed and operable white-painted timber sashes, with a row of navy blue colourback glass spandrels along its base. The wide eaves of the butterfly roof are supported by exposed rafters, the ends of which taper and are painted in a dark tone to contrast with the white-coloured eaves lining. The rendered lintels between eaves and window heads have a painted finish featuring wide white and slightly-recessed narrow navy-blue vertical stripes. Above the garage door, the three wall-faces of the painted and rendered rectilinear element (which houses a portion of the largest Bedroom’s walk-in wardrobe) are finished in the same way.
Much of this detailing is echoed on the house’s east elevation, which can be seen obliquely from Dandenong Road to the north-east. The timber-framed windows again have white-painted sashes, navy blue colourback glass spandrels and painted vertical-striped rendered lintels extending to the underside of the eaves. The
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central portion of this wall, which contains the Kitchen windows, has a white-painted pebble-dash render finish. The profile of the butterfly roof, which slopes inward to an east-to-west box gutter at the centre of the house, can also be clearly seen from the north-east. At the southern end of the east elevation, two elements feature prominently. The first is the dining room’s floor-to-ceiling timber-framed windows which contain banks of alternating narrow panes of fixed ripple-glass and solid timber panels in a zig-zag plan arrangement, with the panes of glass angled to face towards the north-east. The second is an external concrete stair, featuring a balustrade of navy-blue painted bent steel pipe and rods, with the stair’s white-painted underside supported by a gently-curved central downstand beam.
The rear elevation, which is not visible from the street, incorporates a large upper-storey timber deck roofed by a gridded pergola of white-painted timber rafters. The deck and pergola are supported by navy blue-painted steel pipe columns, and a screen wall of white-painted fixed vertical timber louvres spans between pergola and deck at their western edge. Walls are again of white-painted timber-framed windows and face brickwork, with these materials also comprising the house’s west-facing elevation.
The internal entry stair is of carpet-wrapped triangular-shaped timber blocks supported by white-painted steel framing, with lacquered timber handrails and a central balustrade of painted steel rods. Clerestory windows are located above both this stair and the upper-storey bathroom. A grid of six friction-stay openable translucent windows within the plane of the ceiling above the stair serves as a diffuser panel to the clerestory glazing above the entry. An alcove opposite the top landing of this stair is partially screened by a rectilinear grid of lacquered timber framing which contains panels of ripple glass.
Interiors of most of the upper-storey rooms contain original finishes and joinery, and some also contain light fittings. The living room, study, largest bedroom and walk-in wardrobe have timber parquetry floors of a two-tone panelled basketweave pattern. This bedroom and its adjoining walk-in wardrobe, the living room and the study also contain extensive bespoke built-in timber joinery. The living room’s joinery unit features a mirror-backed cocktail cabinet which contains downlights and a fold-out radio. Each of the living room’s three internal walls contains a large cavity-sliding door, one of which is upholstered with the other two of timber-framed glass. The kitchen’s fittings, appliances, and laminate and melamine-clad particleboard cabinetry appear to date from the late 1980s or early 90s. The upper-storey bathroom’s finishes and fixtures are also not original, and appear to have been installed at a similar or possibly later date to those of the kitchen. Continuous clerestory windows to this bathroom along its north and south walls are a continuation of the clerestory windows concealed by the entry ceiling’s translucent glass diffuser panels.
The front garden’s low street boundary wall of random-coursed stonework, and the letterbox – in the form of a large, skillion-roofed timber box mounted on hairpin-like steel rods – appear to be original. Much of the front garden is paved with concrete slabs, but it also contains densely-planted garden beds which include palm trees, spineless yucca, cacti and other succulents, and strelitzia. The rear garden contains areas of lawn and overgrown garden beds. At the southern end of a north-south stone-paved path, six steps descend between stone retaining walls to a lower portion of the garden. This grassed lower portion extends along the site’s southern edge and its perimeters feature garden beds within low curving walls of stone boulders.
INTEGRITY/INTACTNESS Intactness – The intactness of the Lind House is good-to-fair. Its exteriors display a good level of intactness, with what appears to be its original form and most of the original materials still present. The ground-floor entry doors and garage’s roller-door are clearly replacements of the originals, as are the lacquer-finished timber boards which line the soffit of the north-facing undercroft. Internally, the kitchen and upper-storey bathroom interiors have been substantially altered and contain no discernible original fixtures or tiling. Other rooms – including the lower-storey’s powder room – are more intact and retain original joinery, fixtures and fittings. Glass and timber shelf components are missing from the living room’s built-in joinery units, and several doors and shelves are also missing from the largest bedroom’s walk-in wardrobe. [September 2017]
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Integrity – The integrity of the Lind House is good. Apart from the kitchen and upper-storey bathroom, the house’s fabric appears to be little changed since its original construction in 1955. The cultural heritage values of the place are still evident, and can be understood and appreciated in the extant fabric of the house and its site. [September 2017]
CONDITION The Lind House is in good-to-fair condition. Externally its condition is for the most part good. The paint finish to the external faces of its timber-framed windows – and other exterior timber elements, such as the upper-storey south-side pergola and vertical timber louvred screen wall – is peeling in many locations. Some of the underlying timber in these locations appears weather-damaged. There are small areas of corrosion staining to the steel capping at the upper edge of the projecting rendered and painted rectilinear wardrobe box. Internally the house’s condition is fair. There is much evidence of wear and tear, with damage and some missing fabric evident to the built-in joinery in the living room, the largest bedroom and that bedroom’s walk-in wardrobe space. The glazed timber cavity sliding door between the dining and living rooms has been removed from its tracks and is leaning against the living room’s east wall, and one of this door’s panes of glass is broken. [September 2017]
COMPARISONS
Modernist houses of the 1950s in the Victorian Heritage Register
Snelleman House [VHR H2282]: 40 Keam Street, Ivanhoe East
The Snelleman House is architecturally significant as an outstanding and intact example of the innovative residential designs produced in Melbourne in the early postwar period, when the limited availability of materials resulted in experimentation with materials and structures by some highly individual architects. It is one of the finest residential designs of the architect Peter McIntyre. It was built in 1954 as a family home for Hans and Pamela Snelleman, who had purchased the land in 1952. After failing to find an appropriate design through The Age’s Small Homes Service the Snellemans were advised by Robin Boyd to contact McIntyre, who had established his own practice in 1950.
The Snelleman House is a flat-roofed split-level Modernist house with an elongated narrow plan only one room wide which steps down its sloping site in a reverse J-shape, enclosing a space containing gardens and a terraced outdoor living area. The outer facade is of bagged brick, originally painted green but now white, with small window openings punched into it. The courtyard wall is of lightweight timber and glass, with sashless glass sliding doors and windows. Each of the interior spaces is on a separate platform, and these step down the slope with the living room at the top and the entrance hall, dining room, kitchen, two children's bedrooms a bathroom and the original master bedroom below. Instead of a hallway connecting the rooms there is a gallery which runs along the inner wall, enlarging every room and allowing views across a valley to the east which contains the Yarra River.
Snelleman House [VHR H2282]: (L) view from Keam Street; (R) view from living room interior.
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Grounds House [VHR H1963]: 24 Hill Street, Toorak
The Roy Grounds house and flats is architecturally significant as one of the most celebrated works of Modernist domestic architecture of the mid-20th Century in Victoria. The house’s perfectly square plan, with a circular courtyard at its centre, is a striking essay in pure geometry, a hallmark of Ground's work during the 1950s, and one of the best examples of experimentation with geometry in the work of postwar avant-garde architects in Victoria. The Grounds house was one of a number of experiments in developing architecture from pure geometry designed by Roy Grounds, an approach he began in the late 1930s. His other most famous remaining examples are the circular Henty House in Frankston, and the domed Academy of Sciences in Canberra. This house in Toorak, built in 1953-54, was widely praised at the time and won the Victorian Architecture Medal in 1954.
The Roy Grounds house consists of a residence with a string of four investment units behind. Noted architect Roy Grounds (later Sir Roy) designed the front house as a home for himself and his wife Betty. With only highlight windows on its external walls, all of the rooms focus on the internal courtyard, creating an inward looking and almost eastern character. This influence continues to the external design, with strong solid walls, topped by projecting eaves floating above the highlight windows, and a single central large door with oversized knocker. The original planting of the courtyard with persimmon and bamboo also displays an eastern influence. Each of the flats to the house’s rear (west) steps sequentially to the south to allow each an undercover carparking area. While they do not have the geometry or repose of the main house, the flats include distinctive features such as the angled carpark walls, small slatted balconies, and a double height main space, with a tall window wall facing the side courtyard gardens.
Grounds House [VHR H1963]: (L) view from Hill Street; (R) internal courtyard of front house. McCraith House – ‘Larrakeyeah’ [VHR H1906]: 1-3 Atunga Terrace, Dromana
The McCraith House is architecturally significant as an example of structurally-inspired Modernism in Victoria in the 1950s. The McCraith house was cited as an example of the 'structural functional' idiom in the architectural journals of its time, alongside the works of Robin Boyd, Roy Grounds, Harry Seidler and Peter and Dione McIntyre. The use of a prefabricated structural steel frame of this scale was unusual in domestic construction of the period. The design of the McCraith house demonstrates a creative architectural approach in a period when conventional building materials were in limited supply post-WWII. It is a small building embodying ideas of structural experimentation, whimsical design, modern planning and the ideals of a 'holiday house'.
Constructed in 1955 for Ellen and Gerald McCraith the house was designed by Mornington Peninsula-based architects Chancellor and Patrick. Its defining structural feature is the triangulated tubular steel framing system. The building is constructed using two triangulated truss frames fixed at four points to the massive concrete footings on their inverted apex with 'C' section steel beams and steel cross bracing tying the main frame together. The two main steel floor beams break the truss at half height and these in turn support the deep timber floor joists which are cantilevered at either end. The butterfly roof is formed with timber joists
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in a similar configuration. The upper floor extends beyond the small rectangular-plan ground level, allowing for the parking of cars under the overhanging wings. Contained within the splayed walls of the ground floor are a bedroom and laundry area. The upper floor contains a second bedroom, living area and amenities. The dominance of the structural form forces the use of triangular awning windows at ground level with horizontal timber infill panelling between, and timber-framed triangular sliding doors to the balcony.
McCraith House – ‘Larrakeyeah’ [VHR H1906]
Robin Boyd House II [VHR H2105]: 290 Walsh Street, South Yarra
The Robin Boyd II House in South Yarra is of architectural significance as one of the most innovative houses built in Victoria in the post war decades and as one of the most important houses designed by prominent Melbourne architect and architectural critic, Robin Boyd. It is a highly intact example of Modern design inserted into an established suburban area and is innovative in its response to a narrow inner suburban block. Its design is an attempt to use zoning to temper the effect of open planning on adults and children living together in a family house, through the creation of two buildings that are separated by an open courtyard. A distant view of the Dandenongs to the east of the property is cleverly utilised from the adults’ building’s upper level, through the courtyard aperture and beyond.
The Robin Boyd II House is of historical significance for its direct association with acclaimed architect and architectural critic, Robin Boyd, a member of a well-known Melbourne family of artists and writers. He lived there from 1959 until his death in 1971 and the house then remained in the Boyd family until 2004. Known for both his buildings and his writings, he became a leader within the architectural profession. Boyd also influenced the general community through his prolific writings about architecture and the environment, in which he challenged Australian complacency and became known as an arbiter of taste and standards.
Boyd House II [VHR H2105]: (L) Walsh Street façade; (R) view of parent zone from courtyard.
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Summary of Comparisons
The Lind House is an architect-designed postwar Modernist single family house. It has a clear association with the historically important process of the design and construction of freestanding houses in middle-ring metropolitan suburbs during the decades following WWII. Many of the principal characteristics of Modernist residential architecture are evident in the Lind House’s physical fabric, including its butterfly roof with exposed and tapering rafter ends, extensive window walls incorporating colourback glass spandrel panels, painted steel pipe columns, and random-coursed stone cladding.
Across Victoria, hundreds of postwar Modernist houses of local significance are protected by local councils’ Heritage Overlay town planning controls. Many of the State’s more significant examples of postwar Modern residential architecture are also identified in Volume 2 of the comprehensive Survey of Post-War Built Heritage in Victoria: Stage One study, prepared for Heritage Victoria in 2008.
When considered alongside comparable places, the Lind House is not a notable example of postwar Modernist residential architecture. Although the Lind House contains an assembly of many Modernist style elements it does not demonstrate the finely resolved and cohesive design and construction that would elevate it to State level significance.
KEY REFERENCES USED TO PREPARE ASSESSMENT 380 Glen Eira Rd, Caulfield VIC [Arnott House], November 14, 2014: Archives page on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, viewed 15 Aug 2017 via http://modernistaustralia.com/2014/11/380-glen-eira-rd-caulfield-vic/
Anatol Kagan, within ‘Dictionary of Unsung Architects’ area of ‘Built Heritage Pty Ltd’ website, via http://www.builtheritage.com.au/dua_kagan.html
‘Anschel House’ 8 Carnsworth Ave, Kew VIC, November 5, 2016: News page on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, viewed 15 Aug 2017 via http://modernistaustralia.com/2016/11/8-carnsworth-ave-kew-vic/
Goad, P. J. (1992), The modern house in Melbourne, 1945-1975, PhD thesis, Faculty of Architecture Building & Planning, University of Melbourne.
Life and times of Anatol Kagan, April 21, 2011 on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, via http://modernistaustralia.com/2011/04/life-times-anatol-kagan/ viewed 15 Aug 2017.
‘Lind House’ 450 Dandenong Rd, Caulfield North VIC, April 4, 2016: News page on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, viewed 15 Aug 2017 via http://modernistaustralia.com/2016/04/450-dandenong-rd-caulfield-north-vic/
‘Lind House’ is this how it ends, July 4, 2017: News on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, via http://modernistaustralia.com/2017/07/lind-house-is-this-how-it-ends/ viewed 15 Aug 2017.
‘Lyall House’ 13 Belvedere, Kew VIC, April 21, 2017 on ‘Modernist Australia – Mid-century Australian Architecture’ website, via http://modernistaustralia.com/2017/04/lyall-house-13-belvedere-kew-vic/ viewed 15 Aug 2017.
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Reeves, Simon (2014), Gentle Modernist: The Nine Lives of Anatol Kagan, Vivid Publishing: Freemantle.
Survey of Post-War Built Heritage in Victoria: Stage One (October 2008), prepared for Heritage Victoria by heritage Alliance conservation architects and heritage consultants; especially in Volume 1: Contextual Overview, Methodology, Lists & Appendices:
• ‘2.4 Migrating and making a home’, and ‘2.5 Maintaining Distinctive Cultures’, pp.9-11; and
• ‘Kagan, Anatol’ (list of four projects in ‘4.3 Places arranged by architect/designer’) on p.82.
Townsend, Catherine, KAGAN, ANATOL, p.378 in eds Goad, Philip, & Willis, Julie, ‘The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture’ (2012), Cambridge University Press: Port Melbourne.
Journal and newspaper articles
Melbourne Weekly: 19 April 2006, Elevated Living, by Neil Clerehan.
RMIT Design Archives Journal: Vol.1 No.2, 2011, Anatol Kagan Collection: Anatol Kagan (1913-2009) architect, by Michael Bogle, pp. 4-7.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGES
Intersection of Dandenong and Kooyong Roads, with 450 Dandenong Road highlighted. (January 2017)
Floor plans showing general layout of the Lind House. Dandenong Rd (north) is to the bottom of these plans.
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View of the Lind House from Dandenong Rd to the north. Original letterbox and low random- rubble stone walls along the street boundary and driveway edges are visible. (Sep 2017)
L: projecting bay at east side of Dandenong Rd (north) elevation; R: base of the north elevation’s overhanging upper-storey walls at the north-west corner of the house. (Sep 2017)
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View towards Dandenong Rd to the north-east from the undercroft, outside the entry door. The white-painted steel pipe column supports the upper-storey window wall. (Sep 2017)
Looking into the undercroft from the driveway of the neighbouring west-side property. The timber boards which line the soffit appear to have been installed recently. (Sep 2017)
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View from the north-east on Dandenong Rd. The house’s eye-catching appearance served as a de-facto roadside billboard for Kagan, and led to a number of his future commissions. (Sep 2017)
The projecting rendered rectilinear element – which contains a portion of the largest bedroom’s walk-in wardrobe – is painted, and features white and slightly-recessed navy-blue vertical stripes. (Sep 2017)
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Exterior and interior views of the dining room’s floor-to-ceiling timber-framed windows. These comprise banks of alternating narrow panes of fixed ripple-glass and solid timber panels in a zig-zag plan arrangement, with the glass panes angled to face towards the north-east. (Sep 2017)
External concrete stair to kitchen door , featuring a balustrade of navy-blue painted steel pipe and rods, with the stair’s white-painted underside supported by a curving central downstand beam. (Sep 2017)
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House’s south side. L: looking along the terrace’s edge towards the neighbouring west-side building; R: view from the deck, outside the living room window wall, looking towards the south-east. (Sep 2017)
Looking westward along the upper-storey deck, with study/living room window wall to right. (Sep 2017)
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L: looking north along the west-facing elevation. The butterfly roof’s rainwater head and external downpipe are visible; R: stone steps and low wall at south side of rear garden. (Sep 2017)
Lower portion of the rear garden, along the site’s southern edge. (Sep 2017)
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Dandenong Rd (north-facing) elevation photographed by Anatol Kagan – date not known. (Source: RMIT Design Archives, reproduced in Simon Reeves’ 2014 monograph Gentle Modernist)
Dandenong Rd (north-facing) elevation in 2011. Similar viewpoint to the photos on page 18 above. (Source: Simon Reeves’ 2014 monograph Gentle Modernist)
