Behind the mannered Greek revival facade of the Nicholas Building on Swanston Street in Melbourne, a vibrant, creative community of artists, craftspeople and architects has evolved organically over the past forty years.
Now this unique community – comprising more than 100 tenants covering almost every form of creative endeavour – is facing an existential threat, as the four families who own the building look to sell it off.
Designed by architect Harry Norris and built as a speculative office development by Nicholas Buildings in 1925-26, the building is listed on the National Trust and Victorian heritage registers. As architect and tenant of the building Andrew Milward-Bason says, no one is looking to tear the building down, what’s at stake is the future of the people who occupy it.
“If we let market forces take their course, it would likely see that creative community dispersed out of the building out across Melbourne,” he said. “It would be a continuation of the gentrification of the city, the mass-exodus of creatives from the city. All you’ll have left is people drinking coffee, sitting opposite people drinking coffee.”
Instead of resigning themselves to that fate, Milward-Bason and the Nicholas Building Tenant Association are scrambling to find a buyer who will support the current use, whether it be the City of Melbourne, the state government, philanthropists, or some combination of the three. Since the building was listed for sale earlier in August, a petition registering support for the tenants has received more than 12,000 signatures.
The tenants’ association is in talks with council and the state government and are hoping to come to arrangement as soon as possible, with buyer expressions of interest closing on 19 August. Milward-Bason says keeping the building as a creative hub wouldn’t just be good for the tenants, but also for the city.
“We could be a part of the recovery from the impacts of COVID as we try to get off our knees and breathe life into our city,” he said.
As well as hosting building-wide events in collaboration with organisation like Craft Victoria and White Night, the building is host to around seven grassroots art galleries that “foster and propagate and merging creative artists and art.”
The tenants’ association has developed a business case with the support of the City of Melbourne, and are hoping they can convince prospective buyers it makes economic and cultural sense to protect the building’s community.
“This has been a self-sustained, self-determined community that has evolved without any support,” he said. “We don’t need to invent this thing, all we need to do is pave a way for a sustainable, resilient future for the building.”
Milward-Bason’s firm Urban Creative moved into the building seven and half years ago. He notes that the building has “an almost Dickensian” level of amenity, with tenants freezing in the winter and sweating it out in the summer, but this is balanced out by the low rents and “soul-lifting” creative atmosphere.
The National Trust is also strongly supporting the association’s bid to protect the use of the building, with CEO Simon Ambrose, noting that action was essential to “secure the cultural significance of Melbourne’s creative heart.”
“While the bricks and mortar of the building are afforded protection under the Heritage Act 2017, the immeasurable cultural heritage value represented by the Nicholas Building creative community is likely to be lost if the building is purchased by a private owner,” he said.
