Repost April 14, 2019:

The sunken offices at the back of the #ParliamentOfVictoria by @peterelliott.architects are very nice and a good solution to the space issue and you can hardly see it from the street anyway but of course I think my plan would have been better, if a little more expensive. Finish the side wings (using computer made cast artificial stone), put the parking under the back lawn (it’s still at ground level !) then make what is now a huge hidden garden a public one. Would have been worth the extra $. And maybe in the process build some kind of modern dome, with a lookout ?

Before this was built I actually had an email conversation with Lib MP #BruceAtkinson, who seemed to be in charge of the parliament building, who says they wouldn’t be building the wings because it couldn’t be done properly (!) even after I sent him photos of various huge classical buildings recently finished off in the US using cast stone. I guess I’m being a bit old school wanting to finish the damn thing, but I thought opening up the garden would be a good justification.

7 Feb 2018:

The new half sunken parliamentary offices replacing the sweeping rear garden / lawn. Designed by #PeterElliott, restrained modern, but it obscures the lower part of the rear facade (the 1858 Library, and what’s that glass box off to one side ??) – but to be fair it looks exactly like the renders released two years ago; and if they plant a few more shrubs you won’t see it. Still, I would much have preferred that the never completed north and south wings were completed – or at least put the carparking underground ! (but MP Bruce Atkinson, who was in charge, believed this was the only way to go, because completing the wings couldn’t be done properly unless hand carved at great expense, even though u pointed him to the big US industry of cast stone that can be made to match any exisiting stone). @ Parliament of Victoria

• Uncategorized