Health & Wealth: The Architecture of Stephenson & Turner

The exhibition’s curator, Rowan Wilken, spent eighteen months searching and sorting the prodigious Stephenson & Turner Collection (presented to the Library in 1994), which included 2000 bags of flat sheet drawings, 250 tubes of rolled drawings, 15 boxes of photographic material and 389 metres of manuscript correspondence. The collection is the largest of the Library’s architectural holdings.

Known as ‘the colossus’ of Australian architecture, Stephenson & Turner’s output has resulted in a vast portfolio. Founded in Melbourne under the name Stephenson & Meldrum, the firm’s groundbreaking works revolutionised health-facility design and can be generally divided into the categories of health and wealth.

Through its work in health, Stephenson & Turner has had a hand in the design and creation of most major and minor metropolitan and regional hospitals in Victoria and most Australian states, as well as Asia and the Middle East.

Complementing this work in the health and caring professions is Stephenson & Turner’s work in the area of prosperity. This includes numerous banks in metropolitan, suburban and rural centres, various commercial commissions, as well as extensive industrial, educational, recreational, residential, world fair, embassy and religious projects.

The architectural practice that evolved into Stephenson & Turner began in Melbourne in 1921 as a partnership between the entrepreneurial-minded Arthur George Stephenson and the more artistic Percy Hayman Meldrum.

Having served on the Western Front in World War I, architect Arthur Stephenson remained in Europe and enrolled in the AA School, where he met Percy Meldrum. It was there that Stephenson met and studied with Donald Keith 'Skipper' Turner, who would later join Stephenson & Meldrum, eventually becoming a director.

During the 1930s what began as a foray into hospital architecture rapidly became the firm’s forte. Such a focus was also a strength, offering prospective work for the company in a difficult economic climate. (The firm had the remarkable distinction of increasing rather than reducing the number of staff during the Depression, with a combined total of eighty employees in the Melbourne and Sydney offices by 1939.) 

But as the firm grew, the partnership between Percy Meldrum and Arthur Stephenson deteriorated. Meldrum left in 1937, and the company changed its name to Stephenson & Turner.

As the firm continued to expand, offices were established in Newcastle, Singapore, Adelaide and in New Zealand, and Stephenson & Turner grew to become one of the largest architectural practices in the Southern Hemisphere. It employed some 300 to 400 staff at its peak, earning the tag ‘the colossus of Australian architectural practices'.

Many of the hundreds of Stephenson & Turner buildings which still stand today – from hospitals and banks, to other commercial, institutional and industrial projects – are very much a part of the everyday lives of Australians.

In addition to our everyday experiences of these places, the documentary record of these designs, in the form of archives held by the State Library of Victoria, provides a fuller understanding of the contribution Stephenson & Turner has made to the cultural and physical landscape of Victoria, Australia, Australasia, and beyond.

Illustrations

Left: Long Room Melbourne Cricket Club, 1927. Gelatin silver photograph by Commercial Photographic
Right: Children's Orthopaedic Hospital in Frankston, 1936. Gelatin silver photograph by Commercial Photographic