Edgewater Towers
Coordinates: 37°52′12.6″S 144°58′35.3″E / 37.870167°S 144.976472°E Edgewater Towers is a high rise apartment block located in Melbourne, Australia. The building, completed in 1961, was Melbourne’s first, privately developed high rise apartment block and the tallest in Victoria until Robin Boyd’s Domain Park Flats was completed in 1962. The building was designed by émigré architect Mordechai Benshemesh who designed many multi-storey buildings in St Kilda, Victoria and Elwood, Victoria. Edgewater Towers is considered to be Benshemesh's most iconic design.
Edgewater Towers was the brainchild of property developer Bruce Small, of Malvern Star Bicycles fame, and later Mayor for Gold Coast, Queensland. The project was conceived as "own your own" luxury housing and marketed as "sophisticated living with beautiful views". It was designed in 1959-60 and constructed in 1960-61. The project ran into financial difficulties and construction stopped after the lower floors were completed. It was sold for £500,000 and construction then resumed. A restaurant and lounge bar, which had been planned for the roof, did not eventuate. Edgewater Towers was opened on 4 March 1961 by Sir Horace Petty, the Minister for Housing (Victoria) and Immigration, who was an advocate for high density housing. The building is included on the City of Port Phillip's Municipal Review, which lists its significance as being "the first of St Kilda's residential high rise developments". The review also states "It still plays an important symbolic role in the perception of St Kilda's character and imagery". "Standing somewhat like a towering section of a stranded ocean liner, it announces St Kilda's uniquely nautical cosmopolitan zone at its southern approaches". "Thirteen storeys high, with great views across the bay, Edgewater Towers was a confident expression of progress and, after a period of neglect, has re-emerged as an iconic expression of Melbourne post-war modernism".
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