September 2025

The ex-Richmond Power Station is attractive, impressive and very graffitied – it’s in Cremorne off the river, and you might have seen it from the train.

The first part was built in 1891, designed in nice stripey brickwork with a cute tower by Henry Gibbs for the first private electric supply provider in Melbourne (I think, anyway the oldest one left). Not sure who they sold the coal-fired power to originally, but by the mid 1890s, electric streetlights began to appear.

It was quite small, then greatly enlarged in 1903 and 1913, with big long gabled boiler and turbine halls, and raising the roof of the main front (see the extra windows ?).

It kept going until 1976, then was vacant for ages, finally being sold off in the early 1990s, then transformed to become the Country Road hq as part of an office park designed by Metier 3. I think it was sold in 2012, then …vacant ?

And surprised to read that the Naomi Milgrom Foundation bought it in 2022, with plans for arts & cultural uses, and I read work just started a week ago. I found the planning docs, and they’re going to actually take out the 1990s floors from the halls to create big venues, and reinstate the corrugated iron cladding on the second hall, with some areas of glass walls. The heritage report has a photo of a coal hopper too. It all sounds pretty good !

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