Former A G Healing Factory, Kensington

Location: 201 -223 Racecourse Road, Kensington

Status: PROTECTED - HO1172

Date: 1943-44

Two industrial gems bookend the more industrial section of Racecourse Road between City Link and the main shopping strip on the Kensington side of the road (we'll look at the other in January). If you can look past the violent abomination that is the building's current paint scheme, the former A G Healing factory at 201-203 is a relatively plain and unadorned but classic example of the Streamline Moderne form.

A G Healing was founded in 1896 by Alfred George Healing, who started out producing bicycles by hand from his back shed. By 1912, Healing had 50 employees and was producing 25,000 bicycles a year. Their racing versions were used by Australian cycling champions all the way until the 1960s. Healing himself was an innovator and inventor. After World War II - about the time Soichiro Honda was building the first motorised bicycle in Japan - Healing was doing the same in Melbourne. And an example of one of his early motorbikes can be found today at the Scienceworks Museum in Spotswood.

In 1933, Healing began importing radio receivers, but soon moved to production of their own radios with the introduction of tariffs to imported goods. During WWII, the building was given over to the wartime manufacturing effort, in contravention of the Melbourne City Council by-law which had set aside this site for residential use.

Healing experienced solid growth as the domestic economy expanded rapidly in the years following the end of the second world war. By 1956, the company had diversified to the manufacture of television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. The firm produced a bewildering array of disparate good, everything from spanners (they were the main domestic competitor to Sidchrome tools) to locomotives and similar heavy equipment.

Former A G Healing Head Office,
167-173 Franklin Street, Melbourne

Although it had been responsible for production of several iconic Australian brands of bicycles and motorcycles throughout the years, in 1959 the company sold its bicycle division to focus on domestic appliances, and took over heavy engineering firm A. E. Goodwin in 1961. By 1969, the company appeared to have lost its focus, and went into receivership, posting a loss of almost $24 million that year, before finally folding in 1975.

Healing's Racecourse Road site was primarily used for manufacturing operations, and the company maintained a separate headquarters at 167-173 Franklin Street, City. Built in 1928, it remained the principal site of their operations until the company folded. Today it houses a backpackers, and it too is heritage protected, under HO1154.

The Raccourse Road factory was built by Thompson & Chalmers in 1943-4, and was designed by architects Sydney Smith Ogg & Serpel.

The building's parapeted form is most obvious from the rear of the property. It occupies its own free-standing block and is a dominant visual presence on the Racecourse Road streetscape. The most obvious and compelling Streamline Modern element is the building's curved corner entrance, but it also features Streamline style lintels and sill members for window strips along Racecourse Road, as well as a cantilevering canopy over the entry.

The flagpole over the entrance today sits unadorned. Other interesting features include metal-framed multi-pane glazing with hopper sashes and sawtooth fibre cement sheet "Super six" corrugated profile roofing, although this is not visible from the building's exterior. Source: City of Melbourne Kensington Heritage Review.

See here for more information on Healing Cycles.

Stay tuned for our next post, looking at another, much older iconic Kensington industrial gem. We'll see if I'm able to pump that out as a Christmas gift.