A Natural Sculpture?

The ABC moves into an insurance building

In the early 1970s a large number of the ABC's Melbourne staff were moved into a new building owned by AMP insurance (pictured left).

Program makers found themselves arranged in rows of desks in an open plan office environment surrounded by pot plants but without easy access to their tools of trade, broadcasting equipment.  A small number of editing booths were available at the end of the floor, but even if a booth were available it meant leaving the desk and the phone.  However it was a condition of the lease that there could be no broadcasting from that part of the building which had been leased by the Australian Broadcasting Commission!

While administrative staff were generally happy with the arrangement, program makers felt that the accommodation was expensive, and while appropriate for an insurance company was not suitable for program making.

The radio studios were two city blocks away, while the television studios were several kilometres away in suburban Elsternwick.  Every day program makers ran through the city streets to the studios, dodging traffic.

What made it worse was that the ABC owned Waverly Court (pictured left),  a perfectly suitable three storey building, right next door to the ABC radio studios.  This had been left vacant by the ABC when program makers were moved to St James, and was slowly crumbling.  While it would not have held all of the program makers, it could have accommodated a significant number.

Despite all the rational arguments put forward in official memos by the program department heads, management would not budge.  Another annoyance was the inadequacy of the air conditioning in the insurarance building, which seemed to lack humidity control.  Staff suffered shocks from static electricity, and complained of sore eyes and itchy skin.

There had to be an explanation for this discomfort.  In the context of the 1970s oil crisis, one was provided by this memo which purported to come from the landlord.

After years of complaint management finally agreed to allow program makers back into Waverly Court,  next to the studios, and later still the ABC moved into well designed  purpose built premises in Southbank (left).