Heritage+Architecture+MU+building

Manchester Unity Building

In 1928 the site on the corner of Swanston and Collins street, by the Manchester Unity of Odd fellows, for a total of £250,000. Then in 1932, architect Marcus Barlow designed the building, which was built by W E Cooper Pty Ltd, for a contracting price of £215,000. Construction started at midnight, on the 1st of January. The first thing done was the demolition of the buildings that had occupied the site previously, construction then began in round the clock eight hour shifts, this revolutionized the way buildings were built. Finished and formally opened by the premier of Victoria, Stanley Argyle, on the 13th of December the same year, meaning that Construction only took about about a year. The Manchester Unity Building was also the first building to use a progress chart. The progress chart gave the builders a guide as to where they should be at a certain point in construction. The payments were made upon the guarantee from the architect that the building work is up to date.

Manchester was design in an art deco style, featuring long straight lines running the height of the building, on the interior of the building are several offices and practices. The ground level arcade, extensively uses marble, and bronze on the facade's of shops, and to decorate the escalators and lit doors. One reason that the Manchester Unity Building is so important to Melbourne is because it had the first escalators in Victoria. It also featured a rooftop garden with a pond. It also had an aviary full of exotic birds. three lifts capable of running at speeds of 182 meters per minute, which is 3 meters per second

