Aerial view - Historic images - Walkaround : Oakleigh Motel : First Motel in Victoria Australia

The Oakleigh Motel was the first motel built in Victoria. It was designed in 1956 and opened in 1957. It was located on the Princes Highway also known as Dandenong Rd and about 20km (12mi) from the state capital Melbourne.

The motel was a new building type, inspired by American models, and was associated with the post-war boom in car ownership. The rooms provided more comfort than the old hotels and guest houses, and were self-contained and private. Each room had its own bathroom and telephone, and had air conditioning, sound-proofing, wall-to-wall carpet and Venetian blinds. The single-storey nature of the room blocks and the planning of the site allowed patrons of the motel to park their car at the door of their unit.
Signage and electric lighting were closely tied to modern design in post-war architecture, with businesses such as shops, motels and service stations taking full advantage of both to advertise the place and its function. The excesses of commercialism typified by the Oakleigh Motel's signage were deplored by Robin Boyd in his 1960 book The Australian Ugliness, but became more acceptable in the 1980s with movements such as pop art and post-modernism.
The motel includes three separate single storey buildings. The front one on Dandenong Road contains a drive-in entry canopy, an office, manager's residence and a restaurant. A high sloping steel roof supported by zig-zag struts covers the drive-in entry next to the reception area, which has the motel's name etched into the glass entry door.
Above the office area is a large white sloping panel with the words 'OAKLEIGH MOTEL' spelt out in red letters, set forward of the wall and illuminated at night. After the initial construction a large rectangular neon sign was added on the roof above this with the word 'MOTEL' and an arrow (now removed) down one side with the word 'OAKLEIGH'. The restaurant has outward sloping glass windows, and later signage on the roof, and it was extended in 1959.
The Oakleigh Motel is historically significant as the first motel to be built in Victoria and as the only surviving example of the initial boom in motel development in the Melbourne metropolitan area between 1955 and 1959. It represents a new type of building, associated with the economic and social changes occurring in Victoria after World War II, particularly the dramatic rise in family travel by private car in the 1950s.
The Oakleigh Motel is architecturally significant as an unusually intact example of 1950s modernism in Victoria, and is aesthetically significant as an example of the American 'Googie' style of architecture. It is also significant as the earliest example in Victoria of a new building type, which was designed to be visually striking, and used prominent signage and lighting to advertise the place and its function.

Credits and References:

State Library – Victoria https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/
Photographers;
Rose Stereograph Co.

National Archives of Australia https://www.naa.gov.au/
Photographer;
Neil Murray
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Searc...
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Searc...
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Searc...
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Searc...
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Searc...

Victorian Heritage Database https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/
VHR No. H2193
https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.a...
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