Lian Beng buys Newspaper House, Melbourne's iconic Collins Street retail holding

The Singaporean construction company Lian Beng has emerged as the buyer of Newspaper House, on Collins Street, Melbourne.

It sold recently for around $24.9 million. Established in 1973, Lian Beng Group is one of Singapore's major home-grown building construction groups with integrated civil engineering division. It is headed by Ong Pang Aik.

The historic Newspaper House, at 247 Collins Street, Melbourne comes with mosaic mural on its front facade designed by Napier Waller in 1932.

Mervyn Napier Waller's "I'll put a girdle about the earth" features heroic human figures appear among scenes of commerce, construction and communication.

There's lots of gold, an echo of the Byzantine era, in the 1933 commission by Sir Keith Murdoch from the Herald & Weekly Times who needed more than their empire on Flinders Street.

HIDDEN TREASURES OF NAPIER WALLER

1926-27 MURALS Melbourne Town Hall, Swanston Street.

1927 MURAL Menzies Hotel, cnr Bourke and William streets (building demolished in 1969, mural sold privately).

1928 MURAL Better Than to Squander Life's Gifts Is to Conserve Them and Ensure a Fearless Future T&G Life Building entry foyer, cnr Collins and Russell streets.

1928 MURAL Peace After Victory State Library of Victoria, first-floor landing near La Trobe Reading Room, cnr, Swanston and La Trobe Street.

1933 MOSAIC I'll Put a Girdle Round the Earth Newspaper House facade, 247 Collins Street.

1934 FLORENTINE MURALS Florentino Restaurant, now Grossi Florentino, first floor, 80 Bourke Street.

1935 STAINED GLASS WINDOW Wesley Church, Pioneers window, upper gallery, north wall, 148 Lonsdale Street.

1935 STAINED GLASS WINDOW Ian Potter Museum foyer, Swanston Street on university campus. (Designed for Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne, which was destroyed by fire in 1951. Window was retrieved from the ruins.)

1935 MUIRALS Myer Melbourne Mural Hall dining room, sixth floor, 314 Bourke Street.

1937 STAINED GLASS Orchid Window University of Melbourne Botany School.

1940 MURAL Australian Symbolic Figures University of Melbourne Achitecture, Building and Planning Library (Orginally on display at Royal Insurance Company, 414-418 Collins Street, but donated to university after building was demolished in 1969.)

1963 MOSAIC The Eight Aboriginal Tribal Headmen Temple Court foyer, 422 Collins Street.

1967 MOSAIC Prometheus Monash House foyer, 15 William Street.

List Source: Fairfax Media