Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph of Building 7 Testing taken from inside the structure and looking north at ground level, shows the progress of the building construction, Kodak factory, Coburg, January 1958.

Apart from the two-storey steel reinforced concrete administration offices featured in the middle of this photograph, the rest of the building shown here was typical of the architectural and structural styles used in many of the manufacturing buildings throughout the complex, that is, single-storey, low profile, steel columns and steel trussed roofs with brick outer walls allowing large open spaced interiors with air-conditioning and other local services installed in the central ceiling space. This meant that any internal walls and divisions were light weight and non-load-bearing and could be easily altered to match changes to manufacturing requirements. The earthworks shown underway were for sewerage and floor drains which would eventually be located under a concrete floor. The completed brick wall at the far north end was common with the Electricity Sub-station #2 (incoming from the Coburg City Council supply and the Power House and outgoing to all the adjacent buildings). On the far east face of the building, the first section of an aluminium framed facade was being erected.

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

View from the inside of a building under construction. Yet-to-be-clad steel roof trusses and steel bearers for the ceiling can be seen at the top of the picture with earthworks underway for drainage below. A two-storey steel reinforced concrete structure is partly hidden by the roof works in the centre and various scaffolding planks and bricks can be seen in the left foreground.

Physical Description

Black and white silver gelatin photograph printed on light weight paper, landscape format.

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