ICI House - Melbourne

For many decades, new buildings in Sydney were higher than those in Melbourne. Then along came ICI House, just to the east of the city’s Hoddle grid. The structure broke Melbourne’s existing height limit by almost 44 m, and heralded a new wave of modern skyscraper construction.

The original architect was Bates Smart McCutcheon. The structure was designed by John Connell and Associates, with assistance from the civil engineering department of the University of Melbourne. Now known as Orica House, the building is a noteworthy example of Australian heritage engineering.

The modern-day Orica House
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Refer to the slides below for more information.

Loading map...

{"type":"ROADMAP","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"100%","height":"350px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":15,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"mylocation":false,"mylocationfollow":false,"mylocationzoom":-1,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":-37.809056812990505,"lon":144.97334807984475,"icon":""}]}

---

Acknowledgement:
This webpage is a copy of an article by By Lachlan Haycock and Heath Dunn published in 'Create Digital' on 5 February 2026, refer https://createdigital.org.au/visual-guide-building-australia-first-skyscraper/?utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EDM-20260212-Members