Monday, 28 July 2025
6:00pm - 7:30pm
St Kilda Army and Navy Club
88 Acland Street, St Kilda
(upstairs, lift access)
Melbourne after World War I faced a housing shortage and flats were seen as a solution to the problem. By the mid-1930s almost as many flats as houses were being built across the city and many of these were in St Kilda. By 1947 St Kilda contained 5,500 flats, a quarter of all flats in Melbourne.
Many of these new flats were built by European migrants and by the early 1930s Melbourne newspapers began to refer to a new domestic architecture, which they described as ‘The Continental Flat’.
‘Continental Flats’ were often distinguished by their Streamline Moderne facades, and many were built by owner/occupiers who lived in one (usually larger) apartment and rented out the rest.Before World War II most of these flats were designed by local architects, but in the post-war period an increasing number were designed by émigré architects from eastern Europe who often designed several buildings for the same clients.
Our presentation will use several case studies of interwar and postwar apartments developed by European migrants in St Kilda and Elwood to demonstrate how they changed their architectural and social character (by making flats an acceptable alternative to detached housing) and have become an integral part of the distinctive identity of the suburbs today.
David Helms is a cultural heritage planner with over 25 years’ experience in the identification, assessment, protection and management of heritage places. He is a heritage advisor to several metropolitan and rural municipalities including the City of Port Phillip, and manages his own heritage consultancy practice. Since 2022 he has been the Alternate Urban & Regional Planning Member of the Heritage Council of Victoria.