ETA Foods Factory

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The ETA Foods Factory is a heritage-listed Modernist factory in Braybrook, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Built in 1957 on Ballarat Road for Nut Foods, it is best known for its glass curtain wall that creates the building’s public façade. The design was by Frederick Romberg of Grounds Romberg & Boyd.

The administration block’s curtain wall features alternating clear and black glass, exposed tubular steel diagonal members painted gold, and a rhythm of columns that suggests a classical look. The main factory behind has a utilitarian sawtooth roof, but the two parts are separated by a landscaped courtyard and a wide cantilevered loading-bay canopy that forms the courtyard’s fourth side. The building’s glass and aluminium wrap around the sides and back, giving it a standalone feel. A cantilevered, floating glass staircase marks the prominent entrance. A service tower on the roof once carried the ETA brand.

Inside, an internally landscaped courtyard includes a rock pool and fountain designed by John Stevens. The company commissioned a sculpture by Teisutis (Joe) Zikaras—two curved concrete sections stacked on a basalt boulder in a circular basin with water and four copper discs to direct it (not functioning now). Fragments of the original landscape, including cactus and cordyline, remain.

The factory is noted for its futuristic facade designed to read as a billboard. The Ballarat Road front features dark panels and dynamic diagonal bracing that drew attention to signage. A wide carpark canopy is supported by an innovative cable structure. The building also featured tubular steel roof trusses designed by John Connell.

The ETA factory gained international attention and was the only Australian design included in the 1962 Industriebau publication. In the 1960s, it hosted a Christmas display with a diorama of the North Pole and Father Christmas on a sled.

Although it is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, the building has fallen into disrepair and undergone vandalism, including the removal of glass panes around 2008. In the late 1990s the site was bought by car dealer Binks Ford to become a showroom, but it was put on the market in 2008. It was later sold to a developer in 2011, who was required to restore remnants of the original buildings.