Deva House is a 1926 commercial building in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Harry Norris Harry Norris (12 June 1888 – 15 December 1966) was an Australian architect, one of the more prolific and successful in Melbourne in the interwar period, best known for his 1930s Art Deco commercial work in the Melbourne CBD. His designs were ...

, one of the most prolific architects in the city during the period from 1920 to 1930, and noted for his

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

buildings, incorporating both emerging Australian and American architectural styles.

History of the building

Ground Floor Plan, Malhstedt Fire Survey, 1948

Deva House is a 10-storey building located at 327-9 Bourke Street, CBD. It was designed by Harry Norris in 1925 (some sources say 1924), and completed in 1926, for his client George (G.J.) Coles, founder of the

Coles Group Coles Group Limited is an Australian public company operating several retail chains. Its chief operations are primarily concerned with the sale of food and groceries through its flagship supermarket chain Coles Supermarkets, and the sale of l ...

retail empire. Norris designed it during the same period, and in a similar style, to the better-known Nicholas Building.''A Guide To Melbourne Architecture'', by Philip Goad, 2nd Edition, Published 2009 by Watermark Press, ''The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture'', by Philip Goad University of Melbourne and Julie Willis University of Melbourne, Published 2011 by Cambridge University Press, In common with other architects working in the city at the time, Norris adopted significantly different styles, depending on the client and project demands. He also incorporated different architectural influences within one building.

Structure and style

Deva House was constructed using a steel frame for the basement and first two floors, with reinforced

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

for the eight upper floors. Its height is , just below the height limit in force in Melbourne at the time. Economic considerations may also have influenced the design, as this created maximum floor area at more commercially attractive lower levels, and a cheaper construction method for higher floors. Norris incorporated

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...

into many of his building exteriors, notably the G.J. Coles building, but this is absent from Deva House and there is no surviving evidence that it was part of the original finish. Architecture academic

Philip Goad Philip J. Goad is an Australian academic, currently serving as Professor of Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He is also a former President of the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Au ...

has suggested that a first classification would place Deva House within the

Palazzo style Palazzo style refers to an architectural style of the 19th and 20th centuries based upon the '' palazzi'' (palaces) built by wealthy families of the Italian Renaissance. The term refers to the general shape, proportion and a cluster of characteri ...

, with

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

details in its facade treatment, but he adds that closer analysis reveals a more streamlined approach, with elements of

Eclecticism Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in ...

The building today

As with most period buildings on Bourke Street, modernisation of Deva House has left little more than the shell of its original design. The interior of Deva House from the second floor up has been entirely gutted and rebuilt as a hotel, while both the ground floor facade and interior have been stripped out in their entirety and rebuilt in the contemporary high-street style and now house shops. The building is listed on the

RAIA (United we advance architecture) , predecessor = , merged = , successor = , formation = , extinction = , status = Professional body; members association , headquarters = L1/41 Exhibition St, Melbourne , leader_title = CEO , leader_ ...

Victoria 20th Century Buildings Register.

References

External links

Emporis listing
{{coord, -37.81420, 144.96414, type:landmark_region:AU, format=dms, display=title Art Deco architecture in Melbourne Harry Norris buildings 1926 establishments in Australia Buildings and structures completed in 1926 Bourke Street Buildings and structures in Melbourne City Centre