25 May 2023 The St Kilda ‘RSL’ is rather grand and quite unique amongst WW1 memorials. It wasn’t actually built by the RSL, but by the St Kilda Army and Navy Club, who decided to build a complex that would provide services and fund itself, with shops, a hall for dances etc behind, club rooms … Continue reading St KildaArmy Club and Memorial Hall →

28 May 2023 Boyd Community Centre, City Road Southbank, a great State School built 1885, in Tudor style when almost all others were Gothic. Now rather lost amongst the towers, but looks great. Designed by chief schools architect Henry Bastow, or possibly by an underling. A reminder that the area had a residential population in … Continue reading Boyd School, Southbank →

23 May 2023 Adass Israel Orthodox Synagogue, Glen Eira Avenue, Ripponlea. The congregation was formed by mostly Germans / Austrians in 1940, moving here in 1950, then commissioning Vienna-born Ernest Fooks to build this, completed 1965. Not the most exciting design, but nice brickwork house-shaped bit. Interior shot from Google maps, looks 60s, but might … Continue reading Adass Isreal synagogue →

25 May 2023 I had this print above my desk when I was a teenager - I guess mum got it for me, and where my heritage interest started ! It’s by Samuel Calvert, ‘a birds eye view’, but o think entirely done from the ground, not a balloon. You can download a very large … Continue reading Melbourne birds eye view 1880 →

Original post 26 May 2017: Repost from 2017: The architects own home by #DavidGodsell, 1960, by far the most exciting thing on my #beamarismodern jaunt. Luckily the large site next door is vacant. Godsell was (obviously) a rather talented interpreter of #FrankLloydWright, infuences from many of his periods here, along with that 60s interest in … Continue reading Godsell House, Beaumaris →

18 May 2023 I remember this ! A lone old house in front of the Camberwell Junction Safeways where we shopped every Saturday morning when I was a youngster. Facebook took me to an ABC article from 2016, outlining the whole story. She was Mary Ann Campigli, who not only refused to sell to Safeways, … Continue reading ‘The old lady who wouldn’t sell ‘ →

18 May 2023: Amazing place - happened to pass this a few weeks ago, at 23 Seymour Road, Elsternwick, and recognised it from ages ago - it was identified in a @cityofgleneira study from 2019, which tells me it was designed by Harold Shafer, and built in 1973. The very unusual street front has tall … Continue reading Flats that look like something else … →

Original post 16 May 2019: #Alverno, #DalgetyStreet, #StKilda, built 1918 for Miss Hoffman. Next door is an Edwardian house same date probably, and both were once part of the garden of the big Victorian terrace further to the right. An example of #earlyflats, part Edwardian #redbrick, part #ArtsAndCraftsStyle, and rather formal. It’s one flat on … Continue reading Alverno →

12 May 2023: What Hoddle should have done! I’ve re-drawn Robert Hoddle’s 1837 plan of Melbourne, with improvements (plus better placed on the page). I’ve drawn it up to Latrobe (which I called Gellibrand, because the Latrobe wasn’t around in 1837), and included the public building reserves from that extension. I put the reserves in … Continue reading The Hoddle grid reimagined →

Original post 8 May 2019: Every mans home is his Modernist Castle-with-decorative-railings, spotted in Robe Street St Kilda. I think that maybe the slightly rafish seaside suburb of #StKilda after WW1 attracted people and/or designers who just let their heads go. If it was 1930s and didn’t have the stepped parapets it would actually be … Continue reading Modernist castle →