Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph, view of Building 6, Distribution Centre, looking west from vacant land east of Building 6, Kodak factory, Coburg, July 1960

This distant view shows the east face of Building 6. From left to right can be seen a multi-storey section that featured a basement level for employee amenities, the main floor for goods storage and packing, and provision for an extra floor across the southern half of the east wall to accommodate future offices. There is a steel reinforced concrete fire escape and stairwell with bricked Number 2 service block behind. At road level loading access doorways and a bricked Number 1 service block in the background. At this stage, the basement and main level concrete floors had been completed. All steel reinforced concrete columns and beams were in place. Roof trusses were completed except for the centre section. Roof cladding was proceeding at the southern end, and the stairwell concreting was half completed. The two service blocks were ready for fitting out, and brickwork for external and internal walls was underway.

The Distribution Centre received photographic goods imported from Eastman Kodak and other suppliers, as well as product manufactured at the Coburg factory (and for a time, product manufactured at the Abbotsford factory). These goods were then disassembled, stored, repacked to order and delivered to customers. While this building went through many internal changes, the major one of note was to accommodate the introduction of container traffic in the early 1970s. The volume of business finally outgrew the capacity of this building and it was replaced in 1979 by the high-rise Kenneth Allen Distribution Centre (Building 21) at the Newlands Road entry of the Coburg complex. Building 6 then became a 'mixed use' building. This included the interim storage of product and engineering items and housing the Customer Equipment Services operations for many years.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as, film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005 after the manufacturing plant at Coburg had closed down the year before.

Description of Content

Building construction site. The foreground is dominated by uneven cleared land, with puddles of muddy water. In the mid-ground is a multi-storey building under construction. It spans nearly the entire width of the image. Pylons, beams, roof trusses and some brickwork has been completed. Scaffolding surrounds the structure. Workers are visible on site, and to the far left, suburban housing can be seen.

Physical Description

Black and white silver gelatin photograph printed on light weight paper with holes punched along the left edge, landscape format.

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