Radford's Real Estate
90 Gray Street HAMILTON, Southern Grampians Shire
Gray St Commercial Precinct Hamilton
Statement of Significance
SIGNIFICANCE: Excellent example of modernism and Seabrook and Fildes best composition. Critical building in the streetscape.
STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
Radford's Real Estate (Former Uren's Pharmacy)
90 Gray Street
This shop and office building has local significance for its architectural interest as Frank Uren's Pharmacy constructed in the late 1930s by the Hamilton builder, Reginald Williams, from the designs of the notable architects, Seabrooke and Fildes. ([i]) This architectural firm was associated with the designs for the Williams Building diagonally opposite in 1940, Scullions, 196 Gray Street in 1938, the remodelling, in 1937, of the former Miller's Department Store at 121 Gray Street and the remodelling of the Argyle Arms and George Hotels. ([ii]) The building is perhaps the firm's most successful exercise in massing, taking full advantage of the corner site. It uses innovative materials such as steel windows (painted an avant garde bright red), cream bricks, terra cotta quarry tiles and Vitrolite glass facings from America. It lacks but does not need the glass block tower found in their other work relying instead on the flag pole and the panel of brickwork above the office entrance. Fildes gave Williams the design and specification of a house, 355 Gray Street, for a wedding present.
A dentist's chair was installed on the first floor of Uren's Pharmacy in 1968. ([iii]) The building is significantly intact and in excellent condition. It is a keystone building in the streetscape of both Gray and Thompson Street commanding, as it does, over their intersection.
[i] Conversation with Mrs Christie, Reg Williams' daughter, 16 May 1991; HSA DP No. 283 (Drainage Plan, Uren's Pharmacy, dated 24 February, 1939).
[ii] RVIAJ, May 1937, p 72; Argus, 25 November 1937.
[iii] HSA DP. No. 283 (for K Uren, 2 October 1968).
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MECHANICS INSTITUTE
Victorian Heritage Register H2171 -
HAMILTON BOTANIC GARDENS
Victorian Heritage Register H2185
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HAMILTON GAS HOLDER
Victorian Heritage Register H1086
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1 Fordham Court
Yarra City -
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10 Fordham Court
Yarra City
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