Mac.Robertson Girls High School – corner Kings Way and Albert Rd

On the fringe of Southbank stands Mac.Robertson Girls High school, Victoria’s premier girls’ high school.

In 1933, McPherson Robertson, manufacturer of chocolate delights such as Freddo Frogs and Cherrry Ripes, donated £100,000 to Victoria to celebrate the 1934 Centenary of Victoria. A sum of £40,000 was earmarked for a new girls high school on the edge of what would become Southbank. 

The site was excised from the north-east corner of Albert Park, a move that attracted considerable opposition as it was seen as whittling away at public land. But the building provided much-needed employment opportunities, and the students were able to use the nearby public space for recreation. All of the structures supported by Robertson featured either his name or the name of one of his products.

A public competition for its design was held, and the successful architects were the leading modernists, Seabrook and Fildes. 

Seabrook’s design was a radical departure from traditional school design, owing much to European Modernism. Distinguishing features of Victoria’s first modernist school included flat roofs, biscuit-coloured small bricks relieved by highly glazed brilliant blue bricks and bright red steel doors, surrounds of the steel-framed windows, rectilinear interlocking facades, open air classrooms, an industrial aesthetic and a modern interior fit-out. 

The façade of the building comprises interlocking cubic forms of differing heights, offset by the vertical clock tower. Seabrook selected local Glen Iris cream bricks at a time when they were only being used sparingly in buildings. 

Internally shades of red, blue, yellow, green and black were used. Practical floor finish material such as linoleum was used for classrooms, terracotta tiles for corridors and granolithic materials for the stairs and services rooms. 

This modernist approach set a trend for many future buildings in Victoria by applying and adapting European modernist design principles to a broad range of civic, industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

The school can trace its history from the opening of the Melbourne Continuation School in 1905 and is linked to the boys’ school at Melbourne High School. It achieved further acclaim when occupied by the US Marines during World War Two. 

Academically, it remains one of the top high schools in the state and past students have many fond memories of their time at the school. 

It was listed on the Victorian Heritage Register in 1998 due to its architectural, historic and social significance to the State of Victoria. •