ICI House 1956

Summary

Mark Strizic (1928–2012) arrived in Australia in 1951, part of the wave of postwar migrants arriving from Eastern Europe. This renowned Australian photographer studied not his chosen art form but rather physics and geology in Zagreb, in the former Yugoslavia. Strizic picked up the camera after arriving in Melbourne, purchasing this from a pharmacy as a means to explore his new home environment. He became a commercial photographer in 1957, building his reputation primarily as an architectural and industrial photographer in an era of intense urban development. He soon became associated with a coterie of Melbourne modernists, including Robin Boyd, Schulim Krimper and fellow photographers Athol Shmith and Wolfgang Sievers. Often framed by his progressive social and political concerns, his work is overwhelmingly sympathetic with modernist ideals: humanist, rational, spare.

The Art and Heritage Collection holds around 40 photographic works by Strizic, almost all of which document the streets, river and life of mid-century Melbourne in expressive monochrome. In his dramatic photograph of ICI House (now known as Orica House), located on the corner of Albert and Nicholson Streets, Strizic expresses the progressive spirit of this modernist insertion into the existing cityscape. Designed by Bates Smart & McCutcheon and encased in blue glass-curtain walls, it is the first example in Melbourne’s shift from a building height restriction of 132 to 230 feet.