AUSTRALIAN MEAT INDUSTRY EMPLOYEES UNION BUILDING
A furniture and interior fittings project.
The Lygon Street building designed by Albert Genser and Associates is well scaled to its site, in a street which retains its nineteenth century profile and many of its original buildings. Built as national headquarters for the AMIEU and as an investment for its superannuation fund, it brings together two of union secretary Wally Currans apparently unrelated passions: the financial security of employees in an industry with a history of exploitation, and the arts
Designer Helmut Lueckenhausen was consulted when the building was already under way. His brief from Curran to coordinate interior and exterior elements enabled him to work with several artisans, craftspeople and manufacturers to create an ambience which is classy, restrained, but does not attempt to promote the simple and utilitarian building beyond its function and location.
A furniture designer, known for both his attention to detail and his rather witty three-dimensional signatures, Lueckenhausens stamp is clear, but his knowledge and respect for media and processes other than his own have enabled him to bring in and unify functional and decorative shapes and surfaces which, in different hands, could have been confusing; particularly in such small spaces. Lueckenhausen is also a former president of the Crafts Council of Australia, and he praises Curran as a most generous client, committed to quality and collaborative processes between design disciplines and practice. The risk though, with incorporating the work of several artists/craftspeople in small spaces, is visual confusion, where disparate elements compete for attention. Lueckenhausen had avoided this by maintaining control over the design of all the interior fittings, and also by limiting the interior materials to glass, brushed stainless steel and timber silky oak and silver ash. Continuity is further maintained by the use of a varied four-square grid throughout the building, on the stone, timber and carpet floors and in other fittings."
(A. Griffiths, Boutique Office Building, Design Ink, No 13, July 1993, p. 31.)