Original post 12 July 2020, new photos 2024 Repost 2020: The Regal on Fitzroy Street St Kilda isnt just an old building with added floors, it’s amalgam of 3 different periods. Starting out as a Victorian villa, in 1922 it was greatly enlarged by adding a 4 storey building to the front, and a huge … Continue reading The Regal, Fitzroy Street →

9 January 2025 Yurnga is a fab looking and quite significant block of flats on Brighton Road Balaclava, opposite the shops, next to the Grosvenor Hotel. It was finished in 1921, making it amongst the boom in flats after WW1. At the time architects weren’t sure what style to use, but typically used red brick, … Continue reading Earlyish flats, St Kilda →

20 July 2024 This unusual building once stood in Elizabeth Street just north of Flinders Lane, and was one of the few commercial buildings completed in Melbourne by famed US architect Walter Burley Griffin. Built in 1924, it was noted then for having ‘wholly glazed’ front and rear facades and belonging ‘to our own time’. … Continue reading Leonard House 1924, first all-glass facade. →

20 July 2024 This stylish monster once stood on Southbank near Polly Woodside I think where the Plenary Centre now is. Called New Gordon House, it was a replacement for the 1880s charity housing Gordon House in Little Bourke Street, but with single rooms instead of dormitories, and located in what was then the fag … Continue reading New Gordon House →

17 July 2024 ‘Welsh Terrace’ on Mary Street, West St Kilda, a very impressive and unusual Edwardian era landmark. Terraces were still built up to WW1 but not super common, and not many as grand as this row of 6, with projecting paired rooms/porches, and broad arched verandahs. Likely designed by Blackett & Rankin in … Continue reading Artsy terrace, St Kilda (and a crime of passion) →

14 July 2024 Photos winter 2021; a big severe bluestone thing half hiding behind trees and creeper and shadows, not the best pics. Anyway, the front ‘A Block’ was built 1860-1867, designed by Gustav Joachimi of the Public Works Department in a very restrained Italianate style, with no decoration whatsoever, and multiple entrances for some … Continue reading Victoria Barracks →

13 July 2024 In The Age today: Shenley Croft, a very interesting 1906 Edwardian Art&Crafts style house in Mangarra Road Canterbury by architect John Edmond Burke was unfortunately largely destroyed by fire in Dec last year, and @cityofboroondara is trying to force the owner to rebuild. It was sold to a property investor in 2019, … Continue reading Destroyed by fire, to be rebuilt ? →

12 July 2024 I’ve always quite liked this Modernist curtain wall bldg in Collins Street next to the Block; being narrow and under the 40m height limit it fits in, but also stands out with its red spandrels. It was built for Allan’s Music Store in 1957, and designed by Godfrey Spowers Hughes Mewton & … Continue reading Allan’s Music Modern →

11 July 2024 The c1960 Nylex Sign was in the Age today, noting that the developer Caydon went bust two years ago, and the Richmond Maltings site remains part vacant, part demolished - and now I look closer Im a bit aghast again at the development permitted by Heritage Victoria in 2018. At first they … Continue reading Nylex Sign and silos →

10 July 2024 This great stonking pile was called the Cromwell Building, and once stood on the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth. Five floors of projecting pilasters, deep set windows, big circular windows in the ‘attic’ floor, and two stubby towers. It was built in late 1891, and designed by a team of DC Askew, … Continue reading Cromwell Building, and postmodern Pavilion →