Exhaust Fan

On the production floor of the Northcote Shoe Factory, an industrial exhaust fan sits fixed to the wall, its blades thick with dust and grime that accumulated over years of disuse. The fan is stationary, the room silent. In a factory where adhesives were central to sole-attachment processes, ventilation was not incidental; it was a practical necessity. This is what that necessity looked like when the work stopped. The factory at 13-15 Arthurton Road, Northcote was purpose-built in 1926. The company had begun in two smaller buildings on nearby Eastment Street; by 1926 it had purchased the corner block at Arthurton Road and Helen Street and constructed a dedicated production facility. The 1933 Northcote Jubilee publication recorded the borough as "an important, flourishing manufacturing city," part of a broader inner-northern manufacturing economy that included brickworks, tanneries, and a substantial concentration of boot and shoe production across Collingwood, Fitzroy, and Northcote. Employment in Melbourne's footwear industry peaked in the 1960s at nearly 12,000 workers. By the 1970s the factory was operating under the name Purnell Shoe Company, a name independently confirmed by a pair of brown lace-up shoes held in their original Purnell-branded box in the State Library Victoria collection. The factory closed during the 1980s or 1990s, part of a wave of closures across Melbourne's inner north as tariff reductions exposed Australian manufacturers to cheaper imported footwear. Lost Collective photographed the interior in 2012, when press levers, sewing equipment, vacuum sealers, and the smoko-room radio were still in place. The exhaust fan remained on the wall, unmoved. The factory building was demolished in 2016 and the site redeveloped as a residential unit complex.