Former Institute of Anatomy, Canberra

The former Institute of Anatomy (now ScreenSound Australia) must be one of Australia’s finest Inter War Stripped Classical style buildings, overlain with an extensive program of Art Deco derived embellishments.
The building was designed by W Hayward Morris with the assistance of Robert Casboulte and completed in 1930. It is very formal indeed, the well-proportioned main façade comprising a central projecting porch with fluted giant order columns, gently curved on one side, symmetrically flanked by rows of windows separated by fluted pilasters and terminated by blank expanses of wall.
The exterior is clad in sandstone. The interior is no less formal, the major spaces being two double height exhibition halls on either side of a spacious vestibule. The courtyard became a quadrangle in 1999 with the construction of the very respectful and self-effacing section of the building that faces Liversidge Street, which was designed by GHD Architects.

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