6 March 2024

The surprisingly atmospheric entry to the offices above the ex stock exchange in Collins Street (part of the Gothic Bank) created by @more_kta. I say surprising@because it’s not what you’d expect for an office entry, though perhaps more used to get to @reine.larue. This replaced a 1992 entry created by @lovellchen that was a partial recreation of the original 1890 central entry to the Stock Exchange, in the entry created to one side when the banking chamber was expanded in 1923. In 93 they took the lifts out, and now lifts have gone back, helping create a level entry, so it’s quite narrow again. I quite like it.

13 January 2025 (photos same date as above).

The newish courtyards behind the 1887 Gothic Bank in Collins Street, by @kerstin_thompson_architects completed mid 2021, a bit bare but pleasant enough (and much better than before). It’s a series of spaces carved out of the rear parts of the bank and the 1899 Safe Deposit building in 1992 in order to create a (convoluted) way through to the ex-ANZ World Headquarters tower on Queen Street from Collins Street. It was done in a pretty tacky pseudo Victorian style by @peddlethorparchitects (who also did the daggy tower itself). The new version draws inspiration from from Venice (which I now realise might be via the partly Venetian Gothic of the bank), designing them as ‘campiellos’, open to the sky, and using natural materials, notably cobblestones and ‘stucco lustro’, a Venetian plaster technique. The only thing is they’re not as busy as a square in Venice, and they’re a bit cool in winter to linger long. But nice. The new tower lobby is richly impressive but surprisingly dim. There was a cafe at a lower level, didn’t see exactly how to get to it, was that La Rue ? My pics Feb 2023, and before pics taken Jan 2019, after I heard it was all going to change.

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