St Kilda Library

[3] Parents at the Nelson Street kindergarten got together and formed the St Kilda Library Establishment Committee with TAA pilot Ivan Scown as President, former librarian Jenny Love as Secretary and Angela Pedicini as Treasurer.

A library sub-committee was formed in mid 1969, which was the first St Kilda council committee to include community representatives as advisory members.

Enrico Taglietti was appointed as the architect and in December 1971 he accepted a tender on behalf of the Council from the M. Notkin Construction Company of Caulfield South, for the amount of $417,000 to build the library at 150 Carlisle Street.

Between 1992 and 1994, an extension was added by Melbourne architecture firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall (ARM) which provided a new entrance wing as well as seeking to redefine the public plaza and façade of the library facing onto Carlisle Street.

[2] The ground floor of the library is raised above street level one metre high and is accessed via a ramp through the entry wing of the ARM extension.

Taglietti's design makes use of horizontal planes in the thick continuous ground slab and cantilevered roof above, which extend out beyond the inclined walls.

The inclusion of an s-profiled window is the architects’ reference to the emergence of electronic technology in the place of the hard copy book with its screen-like appearance.

[5] Similarities are noted between the Brutalist architectural style of the St Kilda library and the work of architect Le Corbusier, particularly in the expression of unfinished concrete and “oversized elements”.

[2] Peterson draws further links to architect Carlo Scarpa who shares Taglietti's Italian tradition and whose influences can be seen in “the use of natural materials and the layered platforms, which stratify the meeting of the building and its site”.

[2] The RAIA jury panel cited the use of “long, horizontal flat roofs and balconies, sloping fascias and balustrades, and battered walls” as overriding motifs in Taglietti's work.

[1] ARM describe their intention with the extension to be “the development of a civic space linking the Town Hall and its strong 19th Century façade with the Taglietti library across the street”.