Thursday, 22 June 2023

Nicholas Building

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (10:25): The Nicholas Building is an iconic creative hub in the heart of Melbourne. It is a universe of the artistic community, with hundreds of small creative businesses and artists working there. As an artist myself, I remember late nights installing artworks in the Blindside gallery, peeping through the camera obscura on the sixth floor out to the Flinders Street station and the excitement of a fellow artist scoring a much-coveted studio space to work in a buzzing creative environment for cheap rent. Custom-made hats, suits and watches get made, fixed and altered by artisanal makers there.

The Nicholas Building has fostered artists to experiment, to collaborate and to create the substance that our collective culture relies on, but now it is under threat. This building is for sale, and it could be turned into a hotel, luxury apartments or a soulless commercial space. Tenants are already being pushed out with extraordinary rent rises, but they have banded together. They have formed the Nicholas Building foundation to try and save the community of artists and preserve the incredible 90-year creative heritage of this space. This kind of community just cannot be faked. It takes decades of organic growth and cheap rents, and this Nicholas Building foundation is calling on the state government to step in and save one of the last affordable artists spaces in Melbourne, this magical universe that is the Nicholas Building.