Building Details - Architects of South Australia

It took from 1938 to 1943 for the new Savings Bank of South Australia Head Office on King William Street to be completed owing to the wartime shortages both of materials and labour. The new office building was McMichael and Harris’ largest-ever commission (Page 1986: 180) and came just prior to the outbreak of World War Two. The pair was well qualified to take on what was to become Adelaide’s tallest building. According to the centenary history of the Savings Bank of South Australia (1948), the bank’s head office was designed after McMichael and the bank’s trustees and executives had visited Sydney and Melbourne to inspect the most modern buildings there. The style is Art Deco with Classical elements. The motifs depicting South Australian agriculture were significant in defining this style, as was the use of the parallel line motif, the polished granite base and the monumental entrance.

See also Marsden, S, Sumerling, P and Stark, P (1990) Heritage of the City of Adelaide, Corporation of the City of Adelaide, Adelaide. p103.