Original post 27 April 2020

Lost Melbourne part 22- this is Prell’s Building, named after the developer Wilhelm Prell, who built this in 1889 on the south east corner of Queen Street and Flinders Lane. It was designed by #FMWhite in a very, um, efficient form of a grid of regular matching openings that could have been made any height or width. But the even more amazing thing is it was one of three almost exactly the same, in the same block ! I numbered them in sequence though not totally sure I’m right, all built within 12 months I think – anyway, No 2 was across Queen Street, and No 3 on the corner of Collins Street. 😮 That last one was transformed in 1929 with a huge tower into the (2nd) #APAbuilding. That was dem in the late 60s, No2 lasted to the early 70s, and No 1 lasted till 1975. Hard to believe they ever existed. I’m sorry they’ve all gone, but there was no such thing as heritage listing until 1974, and then only for ‘the best’. Update : someone has said that Melb was particularly hard done by during the demolitions of the 1950s-70s, and I’ve always thought, well what about New York or London ? But maybe for a city our size we had an unusually large number of huge wildly elaborate 1880s Victorian structures to start with, and lost a lot of them 80 years later. We certainly outscore Sydney on both fronts. Photos @library_vic and @historyvictoria various dates.

24 January 2024:

The extraordinary and very long gone Prells Building, corner Queen and Collins, in 1903 by Melbourne photographer Melvin Vaniman. It was built in 1889, for developer FW Prell, and designed by FM White. In 1929 it was simplified and transformed by the addition of a tall tower for the APA insurance co, then demolished in 1967 for the not so interesting Sun Alliance building. Photo from State Lib NSW, which notes that : “Melvin Vaniman always sought elevated viewpoints for his panoramas, using a swing-lens camera of his own construction. This view of the intersection of Collins and Queen streets, Melbourne, was taken from the roof of the Bank of Australasia.”

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