Page:Ian Charlton.ogg/13



Reload page to restart the player. (Is that what you consider your most significant work? Santos House?) Well the last job that I did for Conrad and Gargett was the new headquarters for the Commonwealth Bank in Queensland and (Queen and Edward) Queen and Edward and it was a job where I was working with Sipen and I got the spelling in here and I know how to pronounce it even, as the designer and I got in right at the beginning of that job and what I did was organise, there was a brief and I think it was about 4 architects were selected who put in submissions on the client's brief, so what I did, I put a very brief thing in to make it simple, not worrying about individual rooms or all the rest of it and I made it open to the whole of the office to come up with design concepts what actually happened was, it worked very well and put them all up on the board and some of them were completely impractical and all the rest of it.

Out of them all, out of them all, 2 stood out, one by Sipen and one by Frank Holmes. So within the office, we developed those schemes, and I might add that each person that put in a proposition were each given a sum of money which, in those days, was $60, 000 so they weren't doing it for nothing and that gave us money to work on. Mind you, you can spend that pretty quickly in a big office, co-ordinating everything. At the end of the day, Conrad and Gargett, in their wisdom and this is probably one of the design criticisms which I don't mention but there hasn't been enough single designer wielding the stick to produce a good building like Harry Sidler does.

They decided that they would put in 2 schemes, one of Frank's and one of Sipend's. They went down to the thing and they, we had to be interviewed all the rest of it and (and you had done, the firm had done previous headquarters) Yes. We thought we were home and hosed and we should have got it because they had done the one near the City Hall and had done other banks all round the place. I remember, I forget who the old man gave ... Well anyway Peter Gargett said, "A lot of our people bank at the Commonwealth Bank" and the Bank sort of said "A lot of people do that you know". (Laughter). They went down and we were shortlisted with ourselves and Bligh Voller I think it might have been at that stage, which meant that we had to then go through another sort of thing with interviews and inspecting the office and all the rest of it. To cut a long story short, we got the gong. Everybody was highly delighted and they managed to, I think Bill was president of the Brisbane Club, with 1 hour's notice he had a luncheon worked out, got organised in the boardroom there and anyway the Bank all came down and we, the consultants all came down and it was a great lunch.

So I had to go down to Sydney to get the job started. So I went into the room and, just stop me at anytime by the way, I'm not normally this talkative. (Laughter. Your'e on a roll.) Yes, I am on a roll. It's all coming back you know! (Laughter). So I went into the room and there on the end wall was Frank Holme's design. Not our prefered scheme and I said, "What's that doing up there?" I think I sort of indicated that my/our preferred scheme was the other one. "That's it! Oh, we are very pleased with it." I said, "Well, hang on, how about the other one?" They got a bit vague and the rest of it so anyway I went back and we managed to produce a whole lot of figures that had more gross floor area and it was cheaper per square and all the rest of it and a better address on the corner and so on. In the end, they came round and so Sipen's scheme which is now built, was selected. We built up over, I think I was working on it over 3 years, it hadn't been finished when I left actually. A great relationship and they would listen to an architects view and in the end the Project Manager thought that Sipen was marvellous. When it came time for the interiors, she'd put something up and they'd say "Oh, yes we'll have to find the money or... " all the rest of it (Laughter). So I think that's a very good building and I was pleased when it ended on that note with a traditional contract and that's the thing where the architect was the chief of the whole; organised the builder, in a builders relationship and the client was in a client's relationship. It doesn't seem to work these days because people are in a hurry and they want buildings quicker and all the rest of it but it just showed that it could be done. I reckon.