Cooling Brothers Glass Company is well known in Western Australia as an industry leader in glass processing. 2017 saw Cooling Brothers expand further into Victoria, opening an office in Scoresby and proudly acquiring DigiGlass In-Glass-Printing. Adding this state-of-the-art printing line to the company alongside ImagInk Digital Printing established Cooling Brothers the only glass processor in Australia offering a full suite of UV stable, glass printed products. Following this expansion, Cooling Brothers Sydney has been operating for a little over 12 months in NSW offering supply and install structural glazing projects. A number of high-end residential projects have been completed with supply direct from the factory in Perth of Vista View Frameless Balustrade, pool windows, trafficable floors and canopies.

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Working with award winning artists Milne & Stonehouse, Cooling Brothers was honoured to recently be involved in a project of historic significance, ‘The Golf House’ in Surry Hills, Sydney. Well known to locals as ‘Sharpie’s Golf House’, the site was home to an iconic neon sign. Passers-by would watch a golfer hit a perfect hole-in-one, over and over from 1964 until it flickered into disrepair in recent years and donated to the Powerhouse Museum. The building has now undergone renewal with luxury apartments designed by PTI Architects and interiors by fashion designer Colette Dinnigan.

Milne & Stonehouse looked even deeper into the cultural heritage of the site for the design of the canopy for the Elizabeth St project. The site is owned by Richard and Ero Spanos and has been in their family for decades. Richard’s father, Vasilis, arrived in Australia as a 15 year old in 1928 from Nicosia, Cyprus. After working at the Station Café he bought this business and property, from here he opened more cafes around Sydney, then opened butcher shops. His empire grew to include a wholesale meat business and exporting business; with a processing factory in Alexandria. By the mid 1970’s he was one of Australia’s largest meat exporters.
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Artists Milne & Stonehouse were intrigued by the rich Cypriot heritage of the family. Cyprus is known for its Lefkara Lace. This embroidery art dates to the 14th Century from the Cypriot village Pano Lefkara. Women from all villages would practice this embroidery art and the lace work was considered a centre piece of a woman’s dowry. Each girl had to have an extended collection ready for exhibition on her wedding day.

Ero Spanos’ father, Ioakim, was from Limassol, Cyprus, and arrived aged 18 to Sydney in 1949. The artists selected a diamond lace work by his mother, named Argyri, to be used for the pattern to be printed on the canopy of the Golf House redevelopment. The intention was to depict the true tactile quality of the lace onto a glass substrate with as much texture as possible, without reducing the art to a two-dimensional graphic.

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Working closely with the Cooling Brothers graphic designer, ImagInk was selected as the optimum product to achieve the desired outcome which had to be both durable and visually impressive. After some initial challenges obtaining the quality of line required to give enough definition to the intricate lacework, the digital files were skilfully manipulated to print a very bold, yet delicate, canopy. By night the artwork is lit across the glass bringing to life a range of warm colour graduations through the lacework, and by day the sun casts a gentle shadow of Cypriot heritage scattered onto the pavement below.

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