Seabrook and Fildes
Other notable projects included fire stations in Brunswick and Windsor, both also broadly inspired by Dutch Modernism, with rectangular volumes of brick and minimal decorative touches.
Other landmarks included Barnett's in Bourke Street, Melbourne, where the strip windows were separated by panels of blue-painted metal spandrels in imitation of curtain walling, and the Royal Exchange in Pitt Street, Sydney, with its large areas of glass, and rectilinear detailing (though the most distinctive feature of two floors of glass block walls have been replaced).
Through a connection of Alan Fildes the firm was engaged on numerous projects that transformed the commercial streets of the Victorian country town of Hamilton, Victoria in the 1930s, with three pubs refurbishments and five new retail buildings, some in their signature rectilinear style, while others are more exuberant Art Deco, with prominent signage, curved corners and glass brick towers.
[3] Though known as committed modernists, they were also capable of designing in other modes, and their villa 'Combe Martin' for industrialist Charles Ruwolt in Mornington is a fine example of the Old English revival style.
[5] On his return to Melbourne in 1933 he won the competition to design the new Mac.Robertson Girls' High school, which he completed with the assistance of Alan Fildes, with whom he entered into partnership in 1936.
It is significant for its radical shift from the Georgian revival style common to fire stations of the time, replacing historical reference with a stripped-back modern functionalism.
The red brick cubic composition of the Station was set apart from the domestic components, which were contained in two small blocks behind the main building, forming their own residential precinct and reflecting recent advances in European urban design.
The front of the building is broken up by three vertical strips of deeply recessed windows, creating an interplay between solid and void and combined with the deep shadow over the entry suggest an adaptation of modernist design principles to an Australian climate.
[4]: 124–5 When built, it originally included an operational cinema to provide a social focus for the town and a means of paying for the building's construction.
