Guru of high-rise living spins tall storey

Guy Allenby

THERE'S a simple explanation for Karl Fender's missionary zeal for apartment living: he's been doing it himself for much of his adult life.

As the architect explained, his first two decades might have been spent growing up at ground level in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, but from the mid-70s he'd been enjoying the high life overseas.

"Ever since I left in 1975 I had to live in apartments - London, Rome, Boston, Hong Kong and eventually Bangkok - and I loved it," Mr Fender said. "They were vibrant, dense places, with people looking for quality of life in other ways which don't necessarily involve cutting grass and painting and scraping and listening to the neighbours' arguments."

And that's just as it should be really for the co-architect of Eureka, the towering new apartment block pushing ever higher at Melbourne's Southbank.

Eureka Photo May 2005

Developed in a joint venture between the Grocon, Tab Fried and Nonda Katsalidis groups, it is being built by Grocon Constructions and, once finished later this year, the 550 apartment, $500million, 88-storey structure will be Australia's tallest building and the tallest residential tower in the world (or possibly the second tallest, but we'll get to that later).

It's completion will also mark a symbolic moment in Australia's built-history, maintained Mr Fender, who designed the development in concert with architect Nonda Katsalidis, co-director of the Melbourne-based firm Fender Katsalidis.

"Eureka reflects a pivotal moment. It's a landmark statement in inner-city apartment living," he said.

"Hopefully the mere presence of Eureka, the tallest building in Australia - a fully residential tower - will help illustrate the acceptance and beauty of high-density apartment living."

Perhaps it will, although you can certainly be sure many of its residents will certainly have made the radical switch from the wide open, low-rise urban landscape - like Mr Fender did 30 years ago - for a higher-density lifestyle.

He grew up in Melbourne's Burwood. There was bush at the end of his street, he remembered, and where the adjoining suburb of Glen Waverley now stands were orchards.

"I knew nothing else and it was a fine place to be raised."

After leaving school Mr Fender studied architecture at university, then spent his early years as a young architect learning at the feet of the local master.

"I worked with Robin Boyd until his death (in 1971, at 52)," he said.

He left the country a couple of years later and lived in London followed by Rome "for four or five years".

Mr Fender furthered his studies in the US and subsequently spent long stints living and working in Southeast Asia - much of it in partnership with architect Bob Nation as Nation Fender architects.

About 10 years ago he returned to Melbourne to a city that had just begun to embrace inner-city apartment living - some of the most accomplished developments having been driven by Nonda Katsalidis, a man who has been quoted in the past as saying that the suburbs are "terrible, vacuous, isolated. I hate the suburbs, it's a disease. Nothing ever happens there".

Accordingly, it made perfect sense for Mr Fender and Mr Nation to team up with him and form Nation Fender Katsalidis.

(Mr Nation meanwhile has since moved on, now lives in Sydney, and is the new national president of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.)

As the trio worked fruitfully together, Mr Fender and Mr Katsalidis now share a comfortable, creative working relationship that's most recent flowering is the Eureka tower.

"We've always worked together on the design," he said. "We test each other. And it goes beyond Nonda and I, we've got a fabulous team in here."

In 1994 Mr Katsalidis had been responsible for Melbourne Terrace, a mix of 65 apartments, retail space and offices that broke new ground in the shift to higher-density living.

He and Nation Fender Katsalidis went on to design a host of apartment buildings, including Silo Apartments in Richmond, Arcadia Apartments in Parkville, Astorial Apartments in Carlton and the much-admired Republic Tower in Melbourne's CBD.

Appropriately, Mr Fender now lives in an apartment in Republic.

"People say to me you've got a daughter - she's just turned 15 - how does she like living in an apartment in the city?," he said. "Well she loves it. I just had all her friends over and they wouldn't leave the place.

"There's a pool upstairs that I don't have to clean and there's a gym that I didn't have to buy and there's cafes and restaurants and theatres and gardens. And two minutes to the market. What more could you want? Melbourne's just a fabulous, fabulous city to live in."

Mr Fender is genuinely passionate about living in the centre of Melbourne and he's equally upbeat about the new possibilities that Eureka will bring to its residents, as well as to the Southbank precinct and Melbourne in general.

"Where Eureka stands was a gravel carpark," he said. Once finished "it'll act as a conduit between the residential that's always been established to the south of City Road and the river bank. So it's giving Southbank a depth rather than just a linear edge that used to be".

"It'll also add a dizzyingly tall edifice to Melbourne that'll inevitably have both its champions and critics. It'll be quite a piece," Mr Fender said, adding that it's gold-clad top would "set up a very curious geometry ... from different vantage points around Melbourne it'll take on quite a different appearance - sometimes it'll even look like it's leaning".

"Love it or hate it'll be quite a talking point ... but any piece of architecture that has been highly considered is there for people to love or hate."

Will it be the tallest residential building in the world (something Sunland, developer of the Gold Coast's Q1, hotly disputes)? The mine-is-bigger-than-yours argument is "a bit of fun but we don't take it seriously", he said.

"Who cares if we are the tallest residential building or the tallest building in Australia for a couple of milliseconds? What matters is the quality of the outcomes." Besides, "our building is physically taller than that building (Q1) but they've got this little spike on top."

So there.

Eureka Tower - View from Level 82!