Rosh Pinah, the corner block of flats at 311 Pigdon Street, Princes Hill, was designed by Archibald Ikin and built in 1940 for Norman and Rosa Shnider. The name "Rosh Pinah", which means "cornerstone" in the Hebrew language, is taken from Norman Shnider's birthplace of Rosh Pinah in Palestine. Norman was born there on 22 August 1903 and he migrated to Australia as a child in August 1914. The block of flats has a heritage listing and is described in the City of Yarra Review of Heritage Precincts (2007) as: "The Rosh Pinah flat block is significant as a large two-storey stuccoed building set on a corner site, with parapeted and hipped terra-cotta clad roofs, steel framed windows, bold curved architectural forms, original fence – all designed in the Moderne style. Rosh Pinah also represents the Jewish presence in North Carlton and adjacent areas, as an early phase of modern European emigration into Melbourne in the 1930s.” Rosh Pinah features as a location in Robert Gott's crime novel The Port Fairy Murders, published by Scribe in 2015.
by cchg on April 14, 2019Please login to comment on this item