Observatory House in Flinders Street, Adelaide, salutes the technology of Otto Boettger, G.C.W. Kohler
The Observatory House building in Flinders Street, Adelaide.
Image courtesy City of Adelaide
Observatory House was an Adelaide city heritage-listed monument in Flinders Street to the German technological skills brought to the South Australian 19th and early 20th Century economy.
G.C.W. Kohler had Observatory House constructed in 1906. Its tower symbolised the instruments, including spectacles, binoculars and telescopes, that his company made. Kohler bought the scientific instruments manufacturing and repair business from Otto Boettger around 1899.
Boettger emigrated to South Australia in 1877 from Germany. Born in Elbetfield, he was apprenticed to an instrument maker from 1866 to 1871 and was foreman of a first-class plant in St Petersburg, Russia. He also worked in Hamburg as an astronomer’s apprentice.
In 1877, Boettger set up his scientific equipment business in South Australia. By 1890, he was selling around Australia. He was also sole agent for Australia "for the well known microscope establishment of Dr Carl Zeiss".
Around 1899, Boettger sold to Kohler. Shortly afterwards, Boettger died while visiting Germany but the Kohler family continued to operate their newly acquired business under the Boettger name until it was closed in 1974.
Boettger had owned premises alongside the site of Observatory House from about 1879. G.C.W. Kohler, a manufacturing optician, moved into these premises in the early 1900s and, in 1905, engaged architects Edward Davies and Charles Walter Rutt to design new business premises next door. The tower was included in the plans to symbolise the instruments manufactured there: spectacles and lorgnettes, binoculars and telescopes.
Observatory House was important for its individual form and detailing. The tower, the Marseilles tile roof and the quality joinery suggested Queen Anne influences. But the windows detailing, coved cornice and parapet panels were gothic-derived. The roof form and the facade, with the eclectic detailing of the building gave it a considerable distinction. The structure embodied many changes in architectural taste prevalent around the turn of this century.
