How the InterContinental Melbourne revived its heritage gem
There are few more impressive heritage facades than the InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto, on Collins Street.
Designed in the Venetian gothic palazzo style in 1891, the two buildings that once flanked a cobblestone laneway read as having one architecture. However, despite their common features, including turrets, the pair were created around the same time but delivered by different architects.
The Rialto has the signature of architect William Pitt, who designed some of the city’s most elaborate high Victorian commercial buildings.
The Winfield building was designed by architects Charles D’Ebro and Richard Speight junior. It was home to the Wool Exchange – the city’s first auction house where the commodity was traded. Not surprisingly, this suite of buildings – which once housed 300 offices and 14 warehouses – attracted wool brokers and many other people connected with agricultural produce. An anchoring tenant was the Royal Agricultural Society.
The construction of these landmark buildings, and others like them, contributed to the moniker Marvellous Melbourne.
While buildings of this calibre are now handled with kid gloves, in the 1970s these heritage gems were facing a serious threat of demolition. What we see today could easily have been just placards on a wall had the Historic Buildings Act not been passed in 1974, preventing their demise.
Later, in 1986, the Grollo Group enclosed the laneway between the two heritage buildings, allowing neighbours to continue their conversation of their heritage pedigree into the new millennium.
Unfortunately, the former bar adjacent to the reception area of what is now the InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto – a five-star hotel – was far from marvellous.
It was a timely move to relocate the Club InterContinental, previously located on the fourth level of the hotel, to the more prized yet discrete position.
“It’s a place where members or guests staying at the hotel can enjoy the relaxed ambience of this lounge area, whether they are working from a laptop or simply meeting with colleagues,” says Club InterContinental interior designer Stef Marsh, an associate with Mitchell & Eades, who worked closely with colleague Khoa Nguyen on the revival project.
The design team inherited a relatively underwhelming space, where the main feature of the lounge was a substantial bar simply dropped in at its centre.
“We needed to rework the area to include joinery that would allow for breakfast in the morning, through to canapes at the end of the day,” says Nguyen, pointing out a new service hatch that can be closed to seal off the kitchen when it is not being used.
Although Mitchell & Eades was mindful of the heritage environment, it was essentially working within a small floor plan of about 150 square metres.
One of the main strategic moves was to accommodate the space adjacent to this area that was formerly used as a walkway. Now filled with lounge chairs, there is increased area for club members to see the movement of people through the atrium, and also enjoy the quality of light entering from the parquetry glass arrangement created by Grollo decades ago.
Other insertions include bamboo textured wallpapers, bespoke carpets and subtle finishes, such as the smoked mirrored glass behind the new marbled buffet that allows the heritage of The Rialto to be enjoyed, even when one’s attention is on the food.
The design team was also mindful of creating a variety of setting, including a lounge area with a television at one end and banquette-style seating at the other. Comfortable armchairs with side tables filled with books add to the ambience.
One of the nifty features can be seen in the new lounge gateway, with a perforated mesh wall complete with a sliding screen accessed by members’ swipe cards. Taking its design cue from the atrium ceiling, this subtle insertion creates an appropriate level of privacy, as well as a sense of transparency.
Although the cobblestone laneway is now a thing of the past, the honed bluestone tiles in the lobby and through the ground plane are a gentle reminder of the history of these buildings, when wool, rather than hotel guests, was their main focus.
