Augustus Andrew Fritsch

Augustus Andrew Fritsch (1866-1933), known as A. A. Fritsch, was an Australian architect best known for a series of Romanesque Revival style red brick Roman Catholic churches built across Victoria from the 1900s to the 1920s.

Early years Augustus Andrew Fritsch was born in 1866 to Gustav Augustus Fritsch and Christina Fritsch (née Holzer). The Fritsch's were a pioneer family who had arrived in Australia in 1849. Gustav Augustus was a successful brickmaker, a partner of the Upper Hawthorn Brick Company, along with his in-laws, the Holzer brothers, begun in 1883. The factory employed around 50 people and produced 250,000 bricks a week, which were used throughout Victoria. The brickworks site in Hawthorn near Camberwell Junction eventually became a park in 1995, known as Fritsch Holzer Park.

Fritsch began his architectural career by being articled to prolific architect John Beswicke, who lived locally in Hawthorn and designed many houses and shops in the area. At a young age he travelled through Europe and completed his training in the United States, before opening his own office in 1888 in Melbourne.

Remaining in Hawthorn, in his early years he was particularly active in the Camberwell / Hawthorn area, designing several houses in the late 1880s and 1890s, including for instance a pair of boom-style cottages in 1890 for his uncle Anton Holzer at 13-19 Carnavon Street, next to the brickworks. In 1893 he married Alice Mason, from Bendigo.

Throughout this period, he also designed many other type of buildings such as chapels, church halls, convents, and school buildings, often new wings or extensions to existing sites, but also completely new ones, such as the Gothic style St Mary's Convent, Beechworth, and the classically styled St Patrick's College, Sale.

Later life Fritsch's son, who was also A A (Augustus Alfonso) Fritsch (1882–1973), was trained in his father's office, and worked with him throughout his period of church work. He was finally made partner of the firm in 1932, just before his father's death aged 67 in 1933. Augustus Alfonso renamed the firm Fritsch & Fritsch and continued the long association with the Catholic Church, though far less prolific. He is best known for the front and lofty tower added to his father's earlier St Mary's, Bairnsdale in 1936.

Notable projects A A Fristch Year Name Location Project type Notes 1894 St Joseph's Presbytery 1898 Brigidine Convent Chapel 1902 St Mary's Convent 1908 St Joseph's Malvern Church 1914 St Brigid's 1914 St John's Church Assumption College Stage 1 St Joseph’s Receiving Home Additions/extensions 1915 St Mary's 1918 Our Lady of Victories Basilica Minor basilica 1918 Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Church hall 1920 St Patrick's College 1921 Immaculate Conception Transept, vestry, and spire 1921 St Mary's , NSW 1924 St Mary's 1924 St Alpius' Completion of tower 1924 Brigidine Convent School Malvern Classrooms, since demolished 1925 St Brendan's 1928 Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Middle Park 1928 Immaculate Conception 1929 St Columba's Church 1930 Victorian Spiritualists' Hall Victoria Street, Melbourne Hall, since demolished 1931 Kildara Brigidine Convent and School Malvern Chapel, since demolished

Frisch & Fritsch Year Name Location Project type Notes 1932 St. Joseph’s Foundling Hospital and infants home New wings 1933 Redemptorist Monastery Ballarat North wing addition 1936 St Mary's Bairnsdale Façade and tower 1937 Assumption College Kilmore Quadrangle addition (now Fouverie Centre) 1938 St Fidelis' 1940 Foundling Hospital Broadmeadows Nurses home and woman’s dormitory

Gallery