The Central Telephone Exchange, Melbourne is a building in Central

Melbourne, Australia Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung/ or ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most-populous city in Australia, after Sydney. The city's name generally refers to a metropolitan area also known ...

, constructed between May 1907 and early 1909 by the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co. headed by engineer Sir

John Monash General (Australia), General Sir John Monash (; 27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931) was an Australian civil engineer and military commander of the World War I, First World War. He commanded the 13th Brigade (Australia), 13th Infantry Brigade befor ...

, and designed by architect Samuel Charles Brittingham. The building includes an early example of a reinforced-concrete

saw-tooth roof A saw-tooth roof is a roof comprising a series of ridges with dual pitches either side. The steeper surfaces are glazed to admit daylight and face away from the equator to shield workers and machinery from direct sunlight. This kind of roof admi ...

.Holgate, A. John Monash ''Engineering Projects Prior to WW1'', Notes on Building Projects, Central Telephone Exchange, Melbourne
/ref> The building was commissioned by the Public Works Department of the Commonwealth of Australia to house the new telephone service, which came under the recently formed Post Master General's Department following Federation of the Australian Colonies in 1901. the contract for construction was let in February 1908. The Lonsdale Street facade of the exchange was a two-storey Italianate style office block with stone facing with a long, narrow, three-storey building behind. This housed the exchange plant. The design employed reinforced concrete suspended floors supported on the load-bearing brick masonry walls and a centre row of reinforced concrete columns. The building was the scene of the Australian novel ''Murder In The Telephone Exchange'' by

June Wright Dorothy June Wright (née Healy; 29 June 1919 – 4 February 2012) was an Australian writer. She wrote six popular crime novels between 1948 and 1966, all with recognisable settings in and around Melbourne. She also wrote many articles for Cath ...

(1919-2012).Janet Walker, Victorian Correspondent, The Culture Concept Circle, 2014
/ref>

References

External Sources

Melbourne Central Telephone Exchange (Visit) : Proceedings of the Victoria Institute of Engineers (vol. XIII, 1912)
Defunct telecommunications companies of Australia {{telecom-company-stub