Benalla Median PriceThe House price is 3% lower than last year.
Surrounding suburbsBenalla Median RentThe House rent is 2% higher than last year.
| | Map | Street view | Nearby property price | | Planning History: | | | Registered as Victorian heritage | What is significant?
The former Benalla Shire Offices were designed by the architectural firm A K Lines MacFarlane & Marshall and built in 1958, replacing the first shire offices which had been built in 1881. Following the post-World War II growth of Benalla as a regional centre it became the Borough of Benalla in 1948. The town boundaries were enlarged and a major redevelopment of the town fabric occurred, including the construction of the new shire offices. The Melbourne architectural firm of A K Lines Macfarlane & Marshall had originated in the 1920s, and designed many houses in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne in the 1930s as A K Lines & MacFarlane. As A K Lines MacFarlane & Marshall they designed a number of post-war municipal offices, those at Benalla being the first. Although modernism had been introduced to Australia in the early decades of the twentieth century its influence was felt most strongly in the post-war period, which coincided with a great surge in building activity, and the period is noted for radical stylistic and structural experimentation. Modernism was expressed most strongly at first in domestic architecture, but soon spread to other building types, and the desire of local government to appear innovative and progressive soon led to its adoption for municipal buildings. An illustration of the building, titled 'Modernism in architecture', appeared in the Australian Publicity Council's c1960 book Liquid Gold Australia. The building served as shire offices until 1994, when, as part of the 1990s amalgamations of Victorian local government areas, the shire merged with adjacent shires to form the Shire of Delatite. For the following decade it was used as a community health centre.
The former Benalla Shire Offices is a single storey building with a butterfly roof, displaying strong contrasts in the materials used, including brick, glass, timber, aggregate panels and hollow concrete blocks. The main facade on Mair Street presents a largely blank wall to the street, with the main entrance on the north side of the building. Inclined steel beams divide the facade into three bays, with a high band of windows across the top. The only decoration on the front facade derives from the diagonally laid concrete panels each marked in the centre by a concrete block. The side walls have extensive areas of glass, and their front sections were originally clad in pre-cast panels of coarse multi-coloured aggregate, but along the north side this has now been replaced with brick. The main entrance is marked by a hollow concrete block screen and a timber pergola. The panels below the windows on the south side were designed to be painted in different bright colours, and bright colours were also used for the interiors. At the front of the building is a large Council Room, which retains its original light fittings, a built-in public bench at the rear and a number of probably origina |
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