To help you spot the Frank Tate Building, just look for the creamy brick structure with tall vertical windows and the unique curved glass brick wall right beside the wide steps going up on your left-trust me, it’s hard to miss!
Now, as you stand in front of this bold, Art Deco beauty, let me take you on a journey back to the late 1930s-imagine the sound of polished shoes tapping on the steps as Melbourne’s best and brightest rushed inside for their lessons at the old Melbourne Teachers' College. The man behind this building, Percy Edgar Everett, knew how to make an entrance-he designed the Frank Tate Building to stand out with its creamy bricks, tall vertical ribs, and those nearly Tudor-style windows reaching heavenward. If you squint a little, you might almost see echoes of the Hogwarts Great Hall… or maybe that’s just the Melbourne fog playing tricks!
When it first opened in 1940, this building was an expansion of the original 1888 College to the south, a melting pot for would-be teachers learning their craft. And its name? That’s a tip of the hat to Frank Tate-a real hero of Victoria’s education system who worked tirelessly from 1902 to 1928 to make schools better for everyone. He believed training teachers well would change lives, and, as legend has it, was always the first in and last out of the staff room, probably with a strong cup of tea in hand!
Jump ahead to 1968, and this poor building got half-swallowed by a Brutalist-style plaza rising to its north: the kind of thing you’d expect to find supervillains plotting on. The construction created new steps and ramps so that students wouldn’t get lost in a maze of entrances-though honestly, you could make a whole student scavenger hunt out of it.
Time ticked on, and in 2010 the Frank Tate Building had its own glow-up, led by Cox Architecture. No one’s hiding away here anymore-it’s been reimagined as a student centre, with open lounges for study groups, performing arts spaces, cutting-edge labs, seminar rooms, and even a very modern printing station for those “I-can’t-believe-I-left-it-this-late” assignment panics. Lift access for all was added, so nobody misses out on reaching the top floor.
In 2012, the building even scooped up a prestigious award for its next-level learning labs. From the passionate days of teacher training to the buzzing hub of university life today, the Frank Tate Building has always worn many hats-but never lost its style. Go on, give those glass bricks a nod of appreciation as you pass; they’ve seen a few generations come and go!
