Rialto building group, Melbourne
The two ends, Olderfleet and Rialto, were both built for the same developer, Patrick McCaughan, by the same architect William Pitt, both in Gothic Revival style, and both stretched back to Flinders Lane with a front office portion, and storerooms to the rear over multiple levels.
Just prior to this in 1885, just to the west on the corner of Collins and King Streets, the huge Robbs Building had been built as speculative offices, in a broadly Renaissance Revival style, and in 1888 the even larger Federal Coffee Palace was built on the opposite King Street corner (also designed in part by William Pitt).
The tall corner dome of the Coffee Palace was visible in the view along Collins Street from in front of the Olderfleet, creating one of the most striking streetscapes in the city.
In the post WW2 period this streetscape was a subject for photographers, featuring in views by Jack Cato in 1949, and JT Collins and Mark Strizic[2] in the 1960s.
“The Rialto story began in 1972 as a comedy of errors: it deepened by the late 1970s into a tragedy of blighted hopes and missed opportunities; it concluded in the early 1980s on a note of farce.” Graeme Davison, Marrying History with the Future: The Rialto Story, 1987[3]As part of the huge growth in speculative office development in the 1960s, institutional investor National Mutual purchased the Winfield and Rialto and most of the adjacent buildings back to Flinders Lane with a view to future redevelopment in the late 1960s,[4] while in 1971 Hammerson[5] purchased the Olderfleet and the adjacent Record Chambers and New Zealand Chambers.
In 1979, the State Government called on an international expert to prepare a comprehensive scheme, which found the complex ‘possibly of world significance’ and recommended a mix of offices, shops and pedestrian areas.
In January 1981 National Mutual sold the site to the Grollo Group, in a joint venture with St Martin's Properties,[13] who soon revealed plans for a trio of high rise office towers, including one on the corner replacing Robbs, supported on piers through the York Butter Factory, a 19th-century warehouse on King Street.
Then in November 1981, the BLF lifted their ban, with the demolition of Robbs commencing immediately, much to the dismay of the National Trust Chairman Rodney Davidson.
[14] Two weeks later the State Government approved a two-tower scheme, sparing the York Butter Factory, but still involving the demolition of the Robbs building.
[15] In December, four members of the Trust's Urban Conservation Committee resigned in protest at what they saw as approval of the scheme by Rodney Davidson, who said "We're not completely happy, but its not a bad result given 15 year history of the site.
[22] In 2015-17 the forecourt of the Rialto Towers was rebuilt with a podium of office space, creating a continuous streetscape to King Street again, albeit in modern forms.
At the Flinders Lane ends of the balconies on each level there are corrugated iron enclosures with arched windows, which originally housed urinals.
The front section is an example of the Queen Anne style, in red brick with detailing in cement render including banding across the facade, double height arches, scrolled and broken pediments, a high gable and a circular corner turret.
Built at the same time as the Rialto, the two corner turrets face each other across the gap formed by the laneway between them, originally called Winfield Square.
The majority of construction is red brick, with cement dressings, with patterned tiles and granite piers, tall windows with pointed arches, and is topped by an elaborate central fleche functioning as a clock tower.
