McWhirters is a shopping centre and apartment building in Fortitude Valley an inner city suburb of Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, Australia. The buildings occupy over an acre of land bound by Brunswick, Wickham, and Warner Streets.

Design

At the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets is the most iconic building of the McWhirters complex. Built 1930-31 it is art deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 in style features a commanding facade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

 that was designed by the Brisbane architectural firm of T.R. Hall and L.B. Phillips, who also designed the Brisbane City Hall

Brisbane City Hall

Brisbane City Hall, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is the seat of the Brisbane City Council. It is located adjacent to King George Square, where the rectangular City Hall has its main entrance. The City Hall also has frontages and entrances in both Ann Street and Adelaide Street...

.

History

In 1898, Scotsman James McWhirter started a business called McWhirter and Son, Drapers that soon expanded into a sophisticated department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

. At the time a total of 30 staff were employed in the store. By 1909 this figure had risen to 270 and the owners had made a number of purchases of adjoining buildings.. The store was one of the largest in Brisbane's most important shopping districts of the time.

In 1955 the Myer

Myer

Myer is Australia's largest department store chain, retailing a broad range of merchandise including women's, men's and children's clothing, footwear and accessories; cosmetics and fragrance; homewares; electrical; furniture and bedding; toys; books and stationery; food and confectionery; and...

 chain of department stores purchased and moved into the building. The Myer department store operated until 1988. The area had become much less desirable as a shopping district mostly due to the rise of outer suburban shopping complexes such as Westfield Chermside

Westfield Chermside

Westfield Chermside is the largest shopping centre in Queensland, located in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, the second-largest in Australia, behind Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, and is operated by the Westfield Group. Entertainment facilities include an Event Cinemas 16-screen cinema...

 and due to the declining reputation and quality of the suburb that had begun as far back as the 1970s. The main inner city shopping precinct subsequently moved to Queen Street

Queen Street, Brisbane

Queen Street in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia, is one of the city's major streets. It is the city's central road, partly covered by a pedestrian mall called the Queen Street Mall. Queen Street ends at the Victoria Bridge and is bounded by two of the Brisbane River's central reaches...

 in the CBD

Brisbane central business district

The Brisbane central business district , sometimes referred to as the city, is a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and is located on a point on the northern bank of the Brisbane River. The triangular shaped area is bounded by the Brisbane River to the east, south and west...

and Myer went with it. After some renovations, the complex reopened in 1989 as McWhirters Marketplace. In 1997 it was altered to include apartments on the upper levels, which did not prosper as shops.