momo to pomo modern melbourne
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MOMO TO POMO
Assignment One:
Modern Architecture in Melbourne
98 Nicholson Street - ‘Cairo Flats’
Michael John Stephenson 329784
MOMO TO POMO
Assignment One:
Modernist Melbourne
98 Nicholoson Street - ‘Cairo Flats’
The apartments at 98 Nicholson Street are known as the Cairo Flats. Built in 1935 by Architects Taylor,
Solliuex and Overend.
We can consider this building to be of the modernist style due to its simple exterior appearance, and its
curved balconies. The simple fl at facade with recessed windows is typical of works by Le Corbusier and
of Walter Gropius. Presenting a box like form, the windows serve only as a source of light rather than an
embellished decorative feature.
The horizontal curved form of the balconies is typical Art Deco, though similarities can be drawn to the
balconies of the Bauhaus, in which curvature is used vertically at the ends of the smaller balconies. The
balustrades also bear striking resemblance to those on the Bauhaus.
Image from Goad, P. ‘Fabrications’ ‘Best Overend, Pioneering Modernist in Mel-
bourne’ p 111
MOMO TO POMO
Assignment One:
Modernist Melbourne
98 Nicholson Street - ‘Cairo Flats’
Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926
Image from http://www.pbase.com/dyphotono1/bauhaus
Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1929-1930
Image from http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/Corbu.html
MOMO TO POMO
Assignment One:
Modernist Melbourne
98 Nicholson Street - ‘Cairo Flats’
The composition of the design can be broken up into repeating patterns or sections.
The vertical supports of the rooftop balustrade line up with vertical components of
the apartments below. The spacing between the apartments are even ordered. The
location of the balcony mirrors on each apartment. The main window on each sun
balcony is rectangular in shape, but when viewed from street level, the balcony
appears to cut the window into a perfect square.
The edges of the windows in the apartments correlate to the above balustrade, in
this case, the perpendicular direction of the balustrade.
The boundary walls themselves also exhibit modernist ideas
that were notably present in the early work of Frank Lloyd
Wright. The top capping bricks are overhanging, and facing
north, resulting in a year round shadow being produced on the
face of the wall. The illusion is that the top row is fl oating above
the rest of the wall, in a likewise fashion to the ‘fl oating’ roof on
FLW’s Winslow House.
MOMO TO POMO
Assignment One:
Modernist Melbourne
98 Nicholson Street - ‘Cairo Flats’
The overall simple form of the Cairo Flats is what most defi nes it as an example of the Modernist
Style. Features such as service hatchways for waste removal, and humble ‘bedsitter’ rooms (Goad,
Fabrications 1999-2001) which only consisted of a main room with bed, were the products of a
ultilitarian ideal.
All images property of MJ Stephenson unless otherwise stated.
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