Original post 11 March 2020

The Queen Street facade here is new ! It’s been recently reconstructed to its 1955 appearance, something @melbourne_heritage_action suggested instead of an ‘interpretive’ version. The building started out as offices in 1872, converted for #FletcherJones in 1955, along with that light and dark colour scheme, then the Queen St facade turned into a billboard in c1970, and now the facades have been restored (including the shopfronts!) as the base of a Vibe hotel, albeit nothing left behind them, not that there was anything much left after years of alterations.

If your going to do #facadism and then a tower then this is how to do it; a fair setback, but especially a visual break between the historic building and the tower, in this case achieved with lower levels quite different in scale materials and with broken up more pr less horizontal volumes, then your eye doesn’t go straight up the tower part. Better than the crystalline thing that was the first iteration, icily stabbing into the building below (though I quite liked the whole leaning out crystalline idea, just not here). Design by @k2ld_architects_au, for a Vibe hotel.

I hadnt realised the 1955 figures of smartly dressed men on the #FletcherJones building in #FlindersStreet are enjoying a cigarette ! And they’re all the same, and randomly placed too, one on the lane side, 4 on the front and none on the Queen Street side. And yes these are the 50s colours, not sure how they got the dark teal, but the 1956 night photos shows it dark, with light figures – oh, and two more figures on the Queen St side, don’t know if they’re coming back.

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