Hurren, Langman & James Engineers [Commercial Premises] Collection

Full description

Contains material related to work on commercial premises by structural engineering firm, Hurren, Langman and James Engineers. Includes work on Includes plans, calculations, estimates, and drawings for the construction of various building projects for shops, banks, insurance companies, societies and trusts, principally in South Australia. These records are organised firstly under the function carried out in the building, then under the name of the firm occupying the premises where alterations took place, at the time. As firms changed location or a different firm occupied the same building, it was given a different job number. This is reflected in the ordering of the Items (the second lot of numbers) within the Series (numbers beginning with S). Trusts, Societies, Insurance Companies, banks and Benevolent Funds had alterations to buildings with no indication as to the function of their organisation or the building. It was concluded that most would run a shop front for customers or clients. Where there is only an architect named in the personnel list, the estimations and Hurren Langman & James carried out calculations for all the jobs. Their name has not been added for simplicity and readability. Often the jobs have descriptions such as store, with no further description given as to whether the job is in a retail shop or a storage place. Some jobs are listed under the names of specific buildings ie Rust & Watson Building in Berri or Watson House in Adelaide. As firms grew, they needed larger premises so moved to another location. In these circumstances the same name of the firm is kept but a different number at the end of the location string indicates the change of location. Different branches of the same bank are also indicated in this manner.