Nahum Barnet

Nahum Barnet (16 August 1855 – 1 September 1931) was an architect working in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, best known for his extensive legacy of commercial buildings in Melbourne's CBD, as well as his last design, the Melbourne Synagogue.

Barnet was born in the Melbourne Hospital on Swanston Street, the son of newly arrived Isaac Barnet, a Polish-born pawnbroker, tobacconist, and later a noted jeweller. Isaac was an active member of Melbourne's Jewish community throughout his life, as well as civic affairs, becoming a Councillor in the City of Collingwood in 1879.

Nahum Barnet began practicing as an architect in 1879, and was an early advocate of red brick and terracotta, then gaining popularity in England, rather than the ubiquitous stucco or stone. By the late 1880s he had produced some major works, including Rosaville, an unusual and highly elaborate two storey terrace in Carlton, the Renaissance Revival style Her Majesty's Theatre (1886), as well as the Moss White & Co Tobacco Warehouse (1888) and the Austral Building (1891) in Collins Street, amongst the first to introduce the red brick Queen Anne style to the city's streetscapes.

Barnet was active in Jewish life like his father; in 1882 he was elected secretary of the Anglo-Jewish Association, and was honorary architect to the Jewish Philanthropic Society, doing work at the Jewish almshouses (later the Montefiore homes). He was to develop an extensive Jewish clientele, designing many houses and a number of tobacco warehouses and factories, and his first major commission, Rosaville in Carlton, was for Abraham Harris, a prominent member of the Jewish Community.

Unlike some other boom era architects, he weathered the economic crash of the 1890s, and became one of the most prolific commercial architects in Melbourne in the Edwardian era after 1900. He designed at least 32 offices, shops, warehouses and theatres in the central city between 1900 and 1925, ending up with various of his designs near each other. For instance the 1891 Austral Building in Collins Street was a few doors up from his 1905 surgery for Dr Barrett at no 127, the 1913 YWCA was just around the corner in Russell Street, the 1913 Auditorium Building is half a block further down Collins Street, and Clyde House, also 1913, is across the street from that.

Notable works after 1900 include a series of designs that were variations on the local version of the Romanesque Revival, combined with elements of the Queen Anne, characterised by the use of red brick and arches, often with projecting bays; examples include Mason, Firth & McCutcheon Printers in Bank Place, Love & Lewis in Bourke Street, and the Auditorium Building, which included a concert hall at ground level. Barnet embellished some of his essays in this style with Art Nouveau details, relatively rare in Melbourne, including Alston's Corner, the Paton Building, though most decorative elements were flowing floral designs. The striking Young Women's Christian Association clubrooms in Russell Street (demolished) was more eclectic, combining red brick, projecting squat turrets and a high stylised parapet. In this period he also designed in other styles, including the Arts & Crafts influenced Florida Mansions in St Kilda Road, an early block of flats (demolished), the Edwardian Baroque of the Empire Arcade and Wertheims, and stylised Gothic of Francis & Co. His last work was the Baroque Revival Melbourne Synagogue (1929) in South Yarra.

The claim that there 'was not a street in the Melbourne central business district where a Barnet building could not be found' was coined by his friend Isaac Selby and reiterated in Barnet's obituary in The Argus in 1931. The obituary relates that when challenged with the street "Carpentaria Place" (a short street opposite the Windsor Hotel, now pedestrianised), the reply was "You are wrong. You have overlooked the cabman's shelter." Barnet had designed this in 1898, and it still exists, though relocated to Yarra Park along Brunton Avenue some time in the interwar years.

In 1885 Barnet married Ada Rose Marks in the Great Synagogue, Sydney; they had four daughters and from the mid-1890s lived next door to his parents in Alma Road St Kilda. He died at home in St Kilda on 1 September 1931.

List of works
1883 Rosaville, 46 Drummond Street, Carlton

1886 Her Majesty's Theatre, 199-227 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

1887 Working Mens College (1st stage), 124 La Trobe Street, Melbourne (with Terry & Oakden)

1888 Fergus & Mitchell Warehouse (later Robur Tea), 28 Clarendon Street, Southbank (with engineer John Granger)

1888 Moss White & Co Tobacco Warehouse (later Gill Memorial Home), 217-219 A'Beckett Street, Melbourne

1889 Liverpool (large house), 36 Princes Street, St Kilda

1891 Austral Building, 115-119 Collins Street, Melbourne

1892 Rosenthal Aronson & Co (later Slatters), 275-277 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

1893 Clarkes Building, 275-281 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

1897 Heimath, Lansell Road, Toorak

1898 Cabman's Shelter, Carpentaria Street, City (now in Yarra Park, Jolimont)

1900 Bernard's Swiss Portrait Studio, 323-5 Bourke Street Melbourne (demolished 1923)

1901 Wm Cameron Brothers Tobacco Warehouse, 435-447 Swanston Street, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1902 Chinese Mission Church, 119-125 Little Bourke Street

1902 Melbourne Sports Depot, 55-57 Elizabeth Street (2 floors added in 1925)

1902 Clauscen's Furnishing Arcade (later Love & Lewis), 194-196 Bourke Street Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1903 St Kilda Synagogue (new front), Charnwood Grove, St Kilda (demolished c1930)

1903 Wertheim showrooms and offices, 294-296 Bourke Street (demolished 1932)

1903 Alcock & Co, 155-157 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne (demolished 1930s)

1903 Mason, Firth & McCutcheon Printers, 11-19 Bank Place, Melbourne

1904 Altson's Corner, ne corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets, Melbourne

1905 Paton Building, 115-117 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

1905 Empire Arcade, 290 Flinders Street, Melbourne

1905 Dr Barrett's Chambers, 103 Collins Street Melbourne (demolished 1988)

1905c House and surgery for Dr Barrett, 127 Collins Street (demolished 1930s)

1906 St Kilda Sea Baths, St Kilda beach (destroyed by fire 1926)

1907 Armstrong House, 217-219 Queen Street, Melbourne

1909 Wertheim Piano Factory (later GTV-9), Bendigo Street Richmond

1909 Aberdeen House, ne corner of Collins and King Streets, Melbourne (demolished 1989)

1909 Barnet Glass Rubber Co., 289-299 Swanston Street, Melbourne (later doubled in width and a floor added, and details removed, now Legacy House)

1911 London Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

1911 The Kalazoic (Church Brothers P/L), 238 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1911-12 Melba and Britannia Theatres, 283-289 Bourke Street, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1911c Zerchos College, 157 Collins Street, Melbourne (demolished 1980s)

1911c Norman Bros, 60-62 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1912 Display Block, 313-315 Little Collins Street, Melbourne

1912 Majestic Theatre, 172 Flinders Street Melbourne (with Klingender & Alsop, demolished 1980s)

1913 Auditorium Building, 167-173 Collins Street, Melbourne

1913 Francis & Co Chemist, 280-282 Bourke Street, Melbourne

1913 Young Women's Christian Association, Russell Street, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1913 Connibere Grieve and Connibere, (later Reliance House), 301-311 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

1914 Elizabeth House, nw corner Elizabeth & Little Collins Streets, Melbourne (with Grainger & Little architects, demolished 1930s)

1915 Clyde House, 182 Collins Street, Melbourne

1916 Florida Mansions, 601 St Kilda Road, Melbourne (demolished 1982)

1919 Cann's Department Store, 135-137 Swanston Street, corner Little Collins Streets. Four floors added 1935.

1922 Swanston House, 163 Swanston Street, Melbourne

1925 CML Building, 499 Dean Street, Albury, NSW

1925 Lancashire House (for J. & B. Sniders), 36-50 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (demolished 1970s)

1929 Melbourne Synagogue, Toorak Road, South Yarra.