2 August 2023

The fabulous Cathedral Room at the Gothic Bank in Collins Street is now a French restaurant, Reine. It looks very nice, and doesn’t detract from the soaring space at all. The only thing is there’s a door at the rear that wasn’t there before, intended to ‘activate’ by allowing walk through, but it just connects to the bar – anyway it’s not terrible. Most photos Broadsheet, except the before and the stained glass, which are mine.

Historical background: The Cathedral Room was built in 1888-90 as the ‘vestibule’ (a room for informal deals I think) of the #MelbourneStockExchange above, designed by the versatile #WilliamPittArchitect (the #callroom, where the shouting part went on, was upstairs). The middle part of the floor is #prismatictiles / #glassblocks, which got light into the basement through a skylight above. From 1923 the #ESandAbank took over the building, and this was the overseas banking dept., and the skylight was floored over. In 1993 as part of the construction of the ANZ ‘world tower’ behind, the bank and this room were restored, but it was never used much. It does feel closed-in, but also lofty and white. Note the #stainedglass window, the only window, which was completely reconstructed from photos in the 1993 renovations. I think the encaustic floor tiles were also reinstated then.

If you go out the new door, your in a sort of undercroft that opens to a lane (more of a steep delivery alley) and to one side is a little bar, La Rue. and the last photo is Lord Mayor Sally Capp saying how wonderful it all is.

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