Yule House, Streamline Moderne commercial building in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia
Yule House is a five-storey office building at 309-311 Little Collins Street, designed by Oakley & Parkes and completed in 1932. Its reinforced-concrete frame carries a facade of light-coloured Wunderlich terracotta faience tiles, with protruding horizontal beams banded by three recessed strips of green tile marking each floor. Steel-framed multi-paned windows fill the spans between the beams, and the parapet ends asymmetrically, the right-hand column rising above the roofline.
A fire destroyed the previous building at this location in 1931. Architects Oakley & Parkes then designed and built this new structure using reinforced concrete for fireproofing.
The sans-serif lettering above the entrance reads "YULE HOUSE" in an Eric Gill-style face, embossed in plate metal on the first-floor beam. The street number 309-311 appears on the second beam and the construction date 1932 on the top beam, so the facade itself records the building's address and year.
The entrance at 309-311 Little Collins Street is a central doorway between two ground-floor shops, tiled in beige terrazzo with pink skirtings. Terrazzo continues along the entrance walls and lower staircase, where the tenants' directory and the original brass-cased fire alarm are mounted. Offices begin above the first floor.
The parapet ends asymmetrically: the right-hand column rises past the roofline, a detail easy to miss from street level. The name 'YULE HOUSE' is embossed in plate metal on the first-floor beam, with the street number on the second beam and the construction date on the top beam.
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