28 SOUTHGATE – PAST AND PRESENT

The ingredients were a great location, building transformation and a push for urban renewal. The result was the striking 28 Southgate and its surrounding attractions. With a history that goes back to the middle of last century, our building is part of the larger story of the highly successful revival of a key part of Melbourne – the south bank of the Yarra to the west of Princes Bridge. 

Where once across from Flinders Street Station was a mainly industrial district that left much of the riverbank neglected, there is now the Southgate precinct, popular with Melburnians and visitors alike. Some are lucky enough to call it home; others work in its modern offices or are drawn to its shops and restaurants. Bring out the sun and the simple pleasure of a stroll along its riverside promenade is also a big draw.

The renowned Hamer Hall, the theatres of the Arts Centre and some of the nation's top art galleries are also on 28 Southgate's doorstep and the CBD is a short walk away on the other side of the river.

Oils Ain't Oils

The 111 apartments of 28 Southgate breathed new life into what was previously the Mobil building. Developers bought the building in the early 1990s, leaving the basic skeleton but otherwise working a  transformation in keeping with the dramatic rejuvenation of the area. Work was completed in 1995.

In its first incarnation, our building officially opened in 1960 as headquarters of the Vacuum Oil Company. Vacuum, the predecessor of Mobil, had been founded in the US in 1866 and in 1895 became the first oil company in Australia.

 An advertisement placed by Vacuum on page six of The Age  on June 6, 1960, trumpeted the company's pride in its new head office, Victorian branch and Pacific Islands branch home at 2 City Road, South Melbourne. At 15 storeys, it was one of Melbourne's tallest buildings.

Designed by Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, the new HQ is described in the ad as ''one of Australia's finest buildings'' and ''a prominent landmark on the  South Bank of the River Yarra right at Princes Bridge''. The company opted for a major name when it comes to Melbourne architecture: Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, now known as Bates Smart,  has been responsible for many of the city's most prominent buildings since the second half of the 19th century.

Elsewhere in The Age of June 6, 1960, the Cold War raged, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones returned from their Caribbean honeymoon aboard the royal yacht Britannia and particularly unlucky St Kilda footballer Roger Head suffered his second broken leg of the season.

No 2 City Road was a no-nonsense modernist structure. An auditorium could hold some 140 people, and streamlined furnishings were in keeping with the era. Sweeping views of the Yarra River and CBD were a bonus. Across the road, where Hamer Hall now stands, a small park featured Southgate Fountain, a lily pad-shaped work by renowned architect Robin Boyd.

An almost four-metre-high statue of a winged horse (based on Vacuum's  Flying Red Horse logo) held pride of place outside the building. Positioned on a rock, the horse reared up as if ready to take to the skies. Made of an aluminium alloy, Pegasus was the work of Ray Ewers, a former war artist whose statue Australian Serviceman is a feature of the Australian War Memorial's sculpture garden. 

Pegasus left the site with Mobil but hasn't gone far – it now stands tall in the foyer of the modern-day Exxon Mobil building just a few doors down from its former home.

The Neighbourhood

For all its modern-day associations with the arts, leisure and high-rise living, going back only a few decades will produce a picture of our neighbourhood as an industrial district dotted with car parks and vacant government land. Much of the riverbank was in a sorry state. To the east, along St Kilda Road, the renowned arts institutions we know today didn't start arriving on the scene until the late '60s. 

Go back further, however, and it is clear that, as in the 21st century, Melburnians also saw our neighbourhood as a place to mingle and play. Circuses, dance halls, giant slides, vast ice-skating rinks – yes, we had it all. 

In the earliest days of European settlement, shipping and trading used docks and warehouses in the area. The industrial links continued through most of the 20th century. 

The huge Allen's confectionery factory was a riverside landmark from the 1920s to the 1980s. From the 1950s the factory was famous for the massive Allen's Sweets neon sign that sat atop it and grew ever more dazzling and animated as the years went by, so much so that it was known as Melbourne's ''skyline spectacular''.  

Next door to the east was the low, red-brick Australian Paper Manufacturers building. APM had made paper on the Yarra bank near Princes Bridge since 1868.  

Getting back to the circuses, they had most definitely started coming to town in the 19th century, with today's Arts Centre site and surrounds the place to be. The American Cooper and Bailey's circus was one of the first, pitching its tent on the riverbank in 1877. 

A permanent circus home known as Olympia took over much of the Arts Centre site in 1901. Part of the site not used by the circus became the fashionable rendezvous Prince's Court in 1904, adding a Japanese tea house, open-air theatre and miniature train to the mix.  Visitors could also take to a roller skating rink or indulge in some thrills and spills on a water slide, although judging by surviving pictures, a modern-day health and safety officer might not have been overly thrilled by the latter. 

Wirth Brothers' Circus took over the lease of the Olympia site in 1907, showcasing acts in its hippodrome. In 1918, for instance, the audience was treated to a display of the talents of  Zak Ermakov, ''famous manipulator d'armes, duellist, sharpshooter and ex-Secret Service agent''.

Wirth's became an institution, continuing to operate at the site until put out of action by fire in 1953. Terrified lions, horses, bears and monkeys had to be rescued by pyjama-clad circus hands as their home burned to the ground.

Nearby, the Glaciarium ice-skating rink, where the twin Southgate commercial towers now stand, opened in 1906 and was one of the largest in the world. Commonly known as ''The Glassy'', it could seat 2000 people and had 1500 pairs of skates for hire. Patrons could watch films during summer or dance to the Galciarium's own orchestra. All that ice wasn't enough to prevent it from being destroyed by fire twice. There was no resurrection after the second time, in 1964. 

In 1926, where the National Gallery of Victoria now stands, along came ''Melbourne's Quaintest Dance RendezvousI'', the Green Mill dance hall, which later became the Trocadero, a meeting place for World War II servicemen. One of Melbourne's most popular dance venues, the Green Mill had room for 3000 people and was adorned with a giant replica of a Dutch windmill. The hostesses wore green Dutch costumes and patrons could dance under a ceiling featuring twinkling stars or admire a miniature indoor lake known as the Zuyder Zee. The music came to an end in the 1950s. 

Urban Renewal Anyone? The Arts Scene and Broader Rejuvenation

 As early as 1943 an art gallery and a 1000-seat auditorium were recommended for the Wirth's Park site. Sir Roy Grounds was appointed as architect for the National Gallery of Victoria and the performing arts centre in 1959, and a master plan for the project was approved in 1960. The NGV opened in 1968. Hamer Hall opened as the Melbourne Concert Hall in 1982, and the Arts Centre Theatres Building joined the mix in 1984. 

Behind them, though, industrial grunge dominated and the riverbank was looking forlorn and neglected. But not for much longer. A vision of transformation for the area was taking shape in the 1980s, with leisure, commerce and a reimagined waterfront to the fore. The riverbank finally received a promenade worthy of it, and in 1992 the Southgate complex and its shops and restaurants opened for business, becoming an integral part of Melbourne. 

The Sheraton Towers Hotel (now the Langham) and the HWT and IBM office towers were built about the same time, as was the distinctive pedestrian bridge across the Yarra that is so much a part of the area today. Mobil HQ moved to a new building a few doors down and 28 Southgate took shape from the shell of Mobil's former offices. The Quay West hotel/apartment building rose up next door.

Looking Forward

Renewal is a constant process, applying to 28 Southgate as much as anywhere. In 2013 the building underwent an external facelift to keep it looking fresh for years to come and worthy of its place in such an important part of Melbourne. Hamer Hall has undergone major refurbishment and there are proposals to further add to the arts precinct. However the area is improved, it will all still be on 28 Southgate's doorstep.