Oakden, Addison and Kemp

Oakden, Addison and Kemp was an Australian architectural firm in Melbourne, Victoria. While it was short lived, existing from only 1887 to 1892, they designed a number of outstanding projects, and all three members designed many more notable projects in earlier and later partnerships.

The firm began as Terry & Oakden, a partnership of architects Percy Oakden (1845-1917) and the prolific Leonard Terry^[1] from 1874 until Terry's death in 1884.^[2]George Henry Male Addison and Henry Hardie Kemp then joined in 1887, creating Oakden, Addison & Kemp.^[2] Addison, who had started a Brisbane branch in 1889 left in 1892, leaving Oakden and Kemp^[2] practicing until Kemp moved to Sydney in 1895, dissolving the partnership in 1896.^[2]

In 1900 Oakden took on Cedric Henry Ballantyne to become Oakden & Ballantyne, until Oakden died in 1917.^[2][3]

One of the earliest projects was North Park, a large mansion for Alex McCracken, of McCracken's Brewery, completed in 1888, which was amongst Melbourne's first examples of the Queen Anne style. The firm then took on the design of Australia's first skyscraper (together with John Beswicke), the 12 storey Australian Property Investment Co. Building (later known as the APA building) in Elizabeth Street, amongst the tallest in the world in 1889, it remained Australia's tallest until 1912, and Melbourne's tallest until 1929. It was also designed in the new Queen Anne fashion, the tall spikes and spires of the roof adding to its verticality. The next year they designed the more conventional, but still tall, premises for the YMCA headquarters, with its mansard roofs and internal hall. The YMCA never occupied it, due to the financial crash of the 1890s, which also curtailed the work of the firm, and soon lost Addison as a partner in 1892 to establish a practice in Brisbane.