Back to search results
Auburn South Primary School No. 4183
417-419 Tooronga Road, HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY
Auburn South Primary School No. 4183
417-419 Tooronga Road, HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY
All information on this page is maintained by Boroondara City.
Click below for their website and contact details.
Boroondara City
-
Add to tour
You must log in to do that.
-
Share
-
Shortlist place
You must log in to do that.
- Download report
On this page:
Statement of Significance
What is significant?
Auburn South Primary School No. 4183 at 417-419 Tooronga Road, Hawthorn East is significant. Land for the new school was acquired in 1921, and the school was built in 1925 to a design by Victorian Public Works Department (PWD) Chief Architect E. Evan Smith (1870-1965). The Mediterranean Cypress tree to the south of the 1925 main school building is also significant. Recent school buildings within the school site and additions and alterations to the 1925 building are not significant.
How is it significant?
Auburn South Primary School No. 4183 is of local historical, architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.
Why is it significant?
Built in 1925, Auburn South Primary School No. 4183 is historically significant as an expression of the development of the southern portion of Hawthorn East in the 1920s, the second broad phase of the suburb’s development. The northern part of Hawthorn East developed first, from the 1880s. Remaining vacant land in Hawthorn was taken up during an intensive boom of residential subdivision in the municipality between 1910 and 1940, particularly in the area south of Riversdale Road, including Hawthorn East. Upgrade works and electrification of the railway line (1918-22) made the area of Hawthorn East and its shopping centre more attractive and accessible. Consequently, new subdivisions opened up land for both residential and commercial development in the interwar years, and the new school at Auburn South was built to serve this growing population. (Criterion A)
Architecturally, Auburn South Primary School No. 4183 is a fine example of the interwar school buildings exemplified in the work of the Victorian Public Works department under Chief Architect E. Evan Smith during his role as Chief Architect (1922-29); the main school Building was designed in 1925. Smith’s leadership of the Department from 1922-29 corresponded with the construction of a number of fine schools that expressed contemporary ideas of civic beauty through the use of classical styles, an emphasis on axiality and, at times, Palladian plans. These include several examples of State significance including: University High School, Parkville; Bendigo Senior Secondary College; and Kyneton Secondary College. Auburn South Primary School is one of several interwar schools within Boroondara including Hartwell, Kew East, Camberwell South and Ashburton primary schools that were designed and built under the leadership of E Evan Smith. (Criterion D)
Auburn South Primary School is aesthetically significant for its use of restrained classical elements on the dignified 1925 Building. The 1925 building is distinguished through its use of face red brick with concrete sills and lintels around the regularly spaced multi-paned sash windows, terracotta tile hip roof, tall rendered chimneys with contrasting brick elements, and rough rendered upper storey walls. While some external changes have taken place to the school as a whole, the 1925 building is largely intact. Planted before 1945, the Mediterranean Cypress tree in the school grounds, on the south side of the 1925 school building, is historically consistent with the interwar period of the school’s establishment and contributes to the aesthetic qualities of the school building. (Criterion E)
Show more
Show less
-
-
Auburn South Primary School No. 4183 - Physical Description 1
Description & IntegrityAuburn South Primary School occupies an L-shaped site with boundaries to Tooronga Road (east), Burgess Street (south), and neighbouring properties (north and west). The school buildings are mainly located in the eastern part of the site, with asphalted and grassed open space occupying the western part.
The 1925 main school building is oriented to Tooronga Road and located at the front of the school site, behind a front garden that doubles as a play space, with conifer, eucalypt, corymbia and other native plantings, and recent play equipment. The ground surfaces are lawn and tanbark.The 1925 school building is a double storey, red face brick building, with complex terracotta tile hipped roof with exposed roof timbers. The building is loosely H-shaped in plan. The walls are a mix of red face brick to first floor window sill height, with contrasting cream painted rough render above on the front and side elevations. The walls of the rear elevation appear to be red face brick only. Windows are timber, multi-paned, vertically proportioned, with six-paned transom lights above, grouped in fours on the principal elevations of the two projecting bays and elsewhere mostly in threes. Detailing is restrained, limited to different brick bonding to window surrounds with cream, smooth rendered square panels at the top corners, and the rough rendered chimneys with contrasting vertical brick panels and capping at the tops.The entry is marked by a rendered portico with vestigial classical motifs, including stylised ashlar stonework to the heavy columns and scroll-patterned brackets, with geometric decorative panels to the pediment above. Original front doors have been replaced and a modern wing has been added to the rear of the building. Other than these additions, the building presents as highly intact to the streetscape.Other early buildings on the site, noted in the place history and visible in the 1945 Melbourne aerial, have been replaced with more recent buildings. Trees and other plantings within the grounds appear to have been planted after 1945, with the exception of the Mediterranean cypress in the front garden on the Burgess Street side which is an early school planting.Heritage Study and Grading
Boroondara - Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study Volume 6: Hawthorn East
Author: Context
Year: 2018
Grading:
-
-
-
-
-
KAWARAUVictorian Heritage Register H0489
-
THANESVictorian Heritage Register H0953
-
Avenel, later Tower HouseBoroondara City
-
'YARROLA'Boroondara City
-
1 Bradford AvenueBoroondara City
-
-