| Cairo Flats | |
| Address: | 98 Nicholson Street |
| Location Town: | Fitzroy, Melbourne |
| Location Country: | Australia |
| Completion Date: | 1936 |
| Architect: | Best Overend |
| Architecture Firm: | Taylor Soilleux & Overend |
| Website: | https://cairoflats.com.au/ |
Cairo Flats, also colloquially known as Cairo Bachelor Flats or Cairo, is a heritage-listed apartment building in the Melbourne inner city suburb of Fitzroy.[1] [2] Cairo Flats is situated opposite the Royal Exhibition Building in the Carlton Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[3] As a result, Cairo also sits within the World Heritage Environs Area (WHEA) overlay that surrounds this precinct.[4] [5]
The building was designed in 1935 by modernist architect Acheson Best Overend and completed in December 1936 by Blease Macpherson & Co.[6] [7] Cairo is a U-shaped, two story building comprising 28 apartments, mostly studio flats.[8] Overend was influenced by modernist architect Wells Coates and the "minimum flat concept".[6] Each apartment was designed to "provide maximum amenity in minimum space for minimum rent".[8] The building's cantilevered external concrete stairs are noted as an unusual innovation.[6] [8] Amongst a plethora of examples of blocks of flats in the modernist style, Cairo stands alone as a building designed in the 1930s with the purpose of providing high quality housing for bachelors in Melbourne.
The site on which Cairo sits was previously home to Uxbridge House, a private residence and then private hospital, which fell into a state of disrepair and was demolished to make way for Cairo. All that remains from the time that Uxbridge occupied the site is the original Hanover Street Brick Wall, which dates from the 1860s.[9] [10]
Cairo has been the residence of architects John Mockeridge and Frederick Romberg.