‘Alladin’ Houses (c.1911)

Location

corner of Balaklava Rd and Higham Ave, Balaklava, SA

Construction Type

Monolyte method – cast in place concrete walls

History

In August 1911 a regional South Australian newspaper, the Kapunda Herald, reported that, ‘probably one of the most important inventions of the present day’ had been conceived at nearby Balaklava by a local builder/architect, Samuel Bowering Marchant (1870-1950). The invention promised the construction of a house of six rooms using a fast curing concrete poured into a mould would be completely ready for occupation in the space of a week, at nearly half the cost it would take to build in a traditional method.

Under the trade name ‘Monolyte’ Marchant went on to build several houses around the Adelaide suburbs of Torrensville and Prospect and subsequently his patented system was used experimentally for housing by the State Savings Bank of Victoria in 1924-25. Two of Marchant’s early houses survive at Balaklava, on the corner of Balaklava Rd and Higham Ave. Eleven of the state bank funded Victorian houses survive at the Concrete Housing Estate at Sunshine in the western suburbs of Melbourne.