Inside Mitchell House

That feeling of upward movement is, in one sense, deeply appropriate: Mitchell House was never finished. Commissioned by the Mitchell Brush Company and designed in 1936 by Harry Norris (one of the first Australian architects to introduce Art Deco to major commercial projects, and the same hand responsible for the Nicholas Building a few blocks away) the original plans called for a ten-storey tower, rising to the then-maximum permissible height of forty metres. As The Argus reported in September 1936: “The building which has been designed for the site will be of reinforced concrete and steel, rising to 10 stories.” That plan never came to fruition, as by the time construction was complete in 1937, only six floors had been built. The second stage was quietly abandoned.

That truncated ambition is almost invisible now. What remains is not a fragment but a finished object, a perfectly resolved composition in the Streamline Moderne idiom: that is, the first architectural style to incorporate electric light into its very structure, in buildings that were designed, self-consciously, to look like the future. In 1987, Mitchell House was classified by the National Trust and two decades later, in 2010, it was added to the Victorian Heritage Register. These designations protect what is, architecturally speaking, one of the finest surviving examples of its style in Australia.

On first entering Mitchell House, you walk past its wrought iron gates and barrel-vaulted foyer ceiling and cross a terrazzo floor. Then, after pressing a button and waiting, waiting for the lift, you are shifted up upstairs to the office floors, whose hallways are comparatively bare and utilitarian – an interesting contrast with the well-trodden, ornate entrance hall.

Marty at Vintech Camera Service Centre has been in the building since 1996, although owner Vince opened the shop two years earlier. That makes them among the longest-standing tenants – something which gives Marty’s reminisces a certain authority.

“Back in the nineties, the building looked very different,” he tells us. “It was carpeted everywhere. And there was far less foot traffic, far fewer people.” As you can imagine, as such a longstanding business, they’ve seen it all. He says, “In the nineties everything changed over to digital, but now there’s been this huge resurgence, where we’re probably sixty percent film again.” He laughs, “and luckily, now we have stronger coffee.”

What’s changed most, Marty says, is density. Where once a floor might hold a single lawyer who saw a client or two per day, or be used for storage, now every level is a hive of small studios and shared offices, each with their own rotating cast of collaborators: “You have multiple businesses on every floor… you’ve got the record shop, drawing people in. You have the Japanese bunny shop on level four. There are just way more people.”

The building’s longer history is patchier in Marty’s recollection. He admits he doesn’t think about it much, day to day, but he has a feeling for what’s been lost in the immediate surroundings. “Back in the nineties, you could see all the market rooftops, before they developed the buildings across Elizabeth Street. This was quite a substantial building then. Now we’re just very small.”

As for the full sweep of its tenants across the decades: “Everybody’s been through this building,” Marty says. “From underworld lawyers to shoe shops, you name it.” For thirty years… Nick and Despina ran that cafe, but it’s gone now” – along with a great deal else.

The upper floors have become, in recent years, something like a creative precinct unto themselves. SODAA (Studio of Design and Art, run by Thomas Benson and Taiki Monden), arrived around two years ago, after Thomas and Taiki spent the better part of a year trying to get a foot in the door. “We got lucky,” Taiki says. “I think it’s pretty hard to dig into a place like this.” What they found, upon arrival, was a floor of studios and co-working spaces in close proximity, with architects, interior designers, and various other disciplines pressing up against each other. They made the space their own, starting with a large, custom metal door.

Despite these personal touches (often in the shape of a bespoke door), the tenants of Mitchell House are united by the knowledge that their tenure here is, by definition, contingent. This is a heritage-listed building in the heart of the Melbourne CBD, and its future doesn’t rest in the hands of one person. Standing on the corner, surveying the towers that surround it, you understand quickly that Mitchell House’s survival as a place for small, creative businesses is provisional.

“The building, yeah,” Thomas begins, and then pauses, “I feel like we’re on a timeline. These beautiful buildings – they don’t feel like they’ll be here forever.” He compares it to the Nicholas Building – another Norris design, another heritage-listed address that has served as a creative hub for Melburnians for decades.

The building changed hands in 2024. For most tenants the transition was unremarkable, taking place through emails and management. What it did bring was the departure of the old maintenance man, a figure who had acquired, in the collective memory of the building, something close to mythic status. He was, by most accounts, not easy; chain-smoking cigarettes on the footpath and pacing the stairs with proprietary authority. But he was always there, and his presence meant that Mitchell House felt, however imperfectly, looked after.

“You need someone like that,” Thomas reflects. “You need to feel like the building has its guardian angel. We very much felt that for sure.”