6 October 2023:
The Old Treasury Building was famously designed by JJ Clark when he was only 19 years old, and is regarded as one of the finest 19th Century public buildings in the country. It’s all quite remarkable. There’s a book on Clark by Andrew Dodd from 2012 which points out a probable source for the most unusual feature, the arcade supported on paired columns with deeply inset windows, each with its own pediment. The Free Trade Hall in Manchester was built 1853-6, and a sketch published in late 1856 in Builder, a magazine most architects would see, a year before the design of the Treasury. It has a very similar treatment, but that’s not to say Clark just copied it, he varied it, and made the whole more restrained and I think more elegant. So he was in fact a genius.
Photos Wikipedia.
An earlier design of the Treasury was even closer, with decoration in the arches, which as built became windows instead, and with medallions between the arches, not built.
Storey of Melbourne 