Balwyn and Balwyn North Heritage Peer Review
Peer Review
Expert Witness
City of Boroondara Council
Balwyn and Balwyn North, VIC
Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country
Largely undeveloped until after World War II, Balwyn and Balwyn North became suburbs of choice for young married couples in the 1950s and 1960s with many using progressive architects influenced by the International Modernist movement.
In 2021 GML was engaged by the City of Boroondara to undertake a peer review of 18 postwar residential places, earlier assessed by Built Heritage Pty Ltd in 2015 as part of the Balwyn and Balwyn North Heritage Study. The review underwent two rounds of community consultation, initially with the property owners and then with the broader public.
Postwar Modernism embraced design solutions that were true to function and technical innovation with visons for social equity. As a result, many of these places have a different relationship with their setting and context, often designed to be experienced three dimensionally and from within. Built of materials that were often, by design, intended to be light weight, modern buildings weather and age differently and often lack the patina of more traditional nineteenth and early twentieth century heritage places. This develops a tension between our existing mechanisms for evaluating heritage significance and the established threshold requirements for heritage protection and conservation.
The Balwyn and Balwyn North Heritage Peer Review Stage 3 recommended some of the finest exemplars of residential postwar Modernism in Melbourne for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay. The citations prepared by GML provide important insight into the impact that International Modernism had on the Melbourne architectural scene and the young architects who were trained in the early postwar years.
GML provided expert evidence supporting Planning Scheme Amendment C398boro. Following the hearing, the Planning Panel recommended that Amendment C398boro be adopted with the exclusion of one property which had been altered. In August 2024, the City of Boroondara voted to adopt Amendment C398boro with minor changes. The Review and the Panel’s recommendations constitute a significant win for the protection of postwar places within the local Planning Scheme.
GML’s role in successfully taking these postwar heritage places through the amendment process and having them including in the Heritage Overlay, has played a crucial part in advocating for the protection of postwar heritage and the continuing education about their importance as part of Victoria’s heritage stock.
GML has also recently completed detailed heritage assessments of several interwar homes in Balwyn and neighbouring Deepdene.
Postwar homes in Balwyn and Balwyn North. Photos: GML Heritage.
