Designing in Southbank

One of the many stylish blocks of apartments in Southbank is situated on Wells St. Unusually, the four-storey block in a garden setting runs through to Dodds St,
at the rear of the Malthouse.

But in a previous life, it contained a factory occupied by one of Australia’s emerging designers and manufacturers of a new and exciting range of furniture – Grant Featherston, one of the pioneers of industrial design in Australia.

It was in South Melbourne that he started to make his name. At school in Geelong, his drawing abilities had attracted the attention of the Melbourne glass manufacturer Oliver-Davey Co.

Moving to Melbourne in 1938 he spent a year with Oliver-Davey before joining the lighting firm Newton and Gray Pty Ltd where he had his first introduction to plastics. The firm was located on Wells St in the middle of today’s Southbank.

Next door was the factory owned by the Emerson brothers, furniture manufacturers, who had commenced business in 1912 and later manufactured Grant Featherston’s “Contour” chair under licence in 1952. Their factory on Wells St was fronted with a showroom for display of furniture.

The streets were busy centres of manufacture and design, with small factories, engineering workshops, galvanisers, and government factories and storerooms, including a large MMBW site. But they could also be dangerous places, populated with large timber stacks, sawmills and drying kilns and there were regular reports of fires, robberies (sometimes armed in daylight), and gas and chemical leaks.

Featherston quickly learnt about the process of industrial production. After a period of war service, he launched his practice in 1948 and then began working with Robin Boyd at the Modern Home Exhibition in 1949 and later set up a small factory in Collingwood. In addition, he helped form the Society of Designers for Industry (now the Design Institute of Australia) in Melbourne in 1948.

He also established Melbourne’s first modern furniture showroom in Davidson St, off Latrobe St, in 1956. He was a regular advertiser of his products in Australian Home Beautiful and still nominated his address as Wells St in 1956.

With his second wife, Mary, he went on to become one of Australia’s leading innovative and excellent furniture designers and many of his designs subsequently became regarded as aesthetic masterpieces.

For the smart set in Melbourne, it was a time of celebration of new forms and materials (such as plywood and webbing) and a new way of living. Lightness and strength were the outstanding characteristics of these comfortable modern chairs and customers were encouraged to compare them favourably with the bulky chairs that many had in their lounge room.

But it must be remembered that he got his start in Southbank! •