Few things can tie a moment to a memory or build a sense of community like a physical, geographic place. In this sense, the history of one hundred years of the Faculty of Business and Economics cannot be told without an acknowledgement of the land, floors and walls that have contained the people and the work of the faculty.
A place of celebration and corroboree
A centenary of a faculty does not compare to the several thousand years that communities of the Eastern Kulin nation were living on the land where the University now sits.
Before the 18th century, the area was the home of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, who maintained a balanced ecosystem for millennia.
This history was detailed by Professor Philip Goad in Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne.
"The landscape that would become Royal Park, Parkville and the University had been continuously occupied by the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people for thousands of years: they camped there and held corroborees with the neighbouring Bunurong, Wadawurrung and Taungurung peoples," Professor Goad wrote.
It is understood that Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people camped on the site as late as 1840, before the wilful impact of colonialist settlement irrevocably changed the flora and fauna of the area and forced the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung to leave the area.
"It was only from the early 1850s onwards that Lieutenant Governor Charles La Trobe’s policy of setting aside large parcels of land close to central Melbourne for public recreation began to change this landscape where people had once lived and celebrated, and through which they’d moved."
A new building for a fledgling faculty
For the approximately 70 years between the University’s establishment and the founding of the Commerce department, the architecture grew sparsely with buildings, mostly sandstone, being spread between College Crescent and Grattan Street.
The earliest students and staff of the Commerce faculty took up rooms in the North Extension of the Quadrangle and one of the University’s most iconic buildings, Old Arts.
However, over the coming decades, growing enrolment numbers in Commerce mounted pressure on the development of a dedicated building to house the Faculty.
Rather unusually, the University had been gifted the sandstone façade of the Bank of New South Wales building, which had stood on Collins Street until it was demolished in 1932.
Seeing the potential, founding dean Sir Douglas Copland suggested that a modern building could be built to match the striking façade. This was met with resistance from architects, who felt that such a combination of new and old would look out of place and awkward. Copland got his way, however, and the building that came to be known as ‘Old Commerce’ was completed in 1940, to the east of University Plaza along Professors Walk.
The building was somewhat infamous on campus for its odd architecture. From the east side, it appeared to be a new three-storey façade in a modern style, while from the west, it appeared to be, as it had been originally, a wonderful 19th century bank.
Vice-Chancellor John Medley reflected this oddity with inscriptions on each side of the building:
Stranger, recall the mandrill—marred
(Although by God designed)
Through having a superb façade
Spoilt by a blue behind.
Stranger; you blench? Jake heart of grace
And through my portals peer.
You wait until you see my face!
This ’ere is just my rear.
Old Commerce was demolished in 2012 to build the Glyn Davis Building.
From sandstone, to cream-brick, to The Spot
In 1963, the Faculty moved to the newly built Economics and Commerce Building to the north of the Baillieu Library. Extensions took place in the 1990s, adding extra space to the south of the building. For many, the slow lifts that ferried students through the building seem to be an enduring memory.
Described by Associate Professor Neville Norman as “always rather bland,” the building was the home of the Faculty for 45 years, until ‘The Spot’ was opened in 2008.
The late 2000s saw the development of 198 Berkeley St, affectionately known as The Spot. Designed as a 5 green star building, it is still the home of the Faculty today and contains the Copland Theatre.
Adjoined to The Spot is the FBE Building at 95-109 Barry St, which also includes the Giblin Eunson Library.
Built in 2011, the library looks over University Square, and is shared between the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Education. As such, it is named in honour of the prominent economics professor Lyndhurst Falkiner Giblin, and leading school librarian and Melbourne Teachers’ College principal Warwick Eunson. It replaced the faculties’ previously distinct libraries.
In 2024, a reinvigoration of The Spot coincided with the Faculty’s centenary, and includes the new Alumni Wall leading to the Copland Theatre, celebrating 100 Years of Global Impact.
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