Prahran College

The Prahran College of Advanced Education, formerly Prahran College of Technology, was a late-secondary and tertiary institution with a business school and a trade school, best known for its multi-disciplinary art school that dated back to the 1860s, populated by instructors and students who were among Australia’s notable artists including Sidney Nolan and Polly Borland, designers like Mimmo Cozzolino and Linda Jackson, and performers, Joan Carden and Ethel Punshon among them.

After undergoing various mergers, splits and incarnations over the years, the Prahran entity ceased to exist from 1 January 1992, when an Act of Parliament brought Prahran College of TAFE under the auspices of Swinburne University of Technology. The tertiary art courses, Graphics and Industrial Design, remained on the campus. All others were moved to Deakin University, except Prahran Fine Art, which was relocated and amalgamated with the Victorian College of the Arts.

History

The art school in Prahran grew from beginnings in the 1850s. The Prahran Mechanics' Institute was established in 1854 with part of its activities separating and being identified as Prahran Technical Art School in 1915. That was incorporated in the Prahran Technical School in 1950 with its tertiary and trade education becoming the Prahran College of Technology in 1967. This then became the Prahran College of Advanced Education in 1974. It offered a wide range of higher education and TAFE courses (later including degrees), with a focus on art and design. On 9 December 1981, the TAFE component was spun off as the Prahran College of TAFE.

Prahran Mechanics’ Institute

In the 1850s what was an as yet unnamed district of Melbourne south of the Yarra River was occupied on its hills by large estates, an extant survivor being Como House, served by a population of around 8,000 workers in cottages set in often swampy, flood-prone lower-lying areas.