14 June 2013: Help! Thanks to Eelenberg Fraser, City of Port Phillip, VCAT, or whoever is responsible. 50 Albert Road South Melbourne. 2016: O dear just discovered this one won the 2014 City of Port Phillip design award for tall buildings! Guess they didn’t mind the treatment of the terrace (it’s only 1 room deep … Continue reading Squashed →

13 June 2024 So this 1960 block of flats ‘Motstone’ in Walsh Street Sth Yarra was in @theageaustralia the other day because the resident owners opposed heritage listing - and I admit it’s certainly a surprising inclusion ! It’s somewhat interesting, featuring timber framed window-walls and perhaps an early example of being perched above parking. … Continue reading Six pack flats as heritage in South Yarra →

12 June 2016: Kodak House, #OakleyandParkes, 1935, on left, and #LyricHouse, #AandKHenderson, 1930 on right; a pair of the once common #tallthinfrontages of the #melbCBD, a result of early small subdivisions and later high rise technology. Kodak House was built for the eponymous company, and its stylish Art Deco with a dash of Modern, note … Continue reading Kodak and Lyric House →

9 June 2024 One of my early Instagram posts from 2013, when I just labelled it ‘urban decrepitude’. It was in Johnston Street Collingwood corner of Sydney Street near Hoddle, and despite being contributory in the Johnston Street heritage precinct was surprisingly demolished for a small retail /apartment building that looks like it’s maybe 1977 … Continue reading Nice old shops, gone →

8 June 2024 The final look of the Fed Square entrance to the Metro Tunnel station (though it still says ‘concept’). Basically it’s like the original image, which made the glass look invisible, but of course it isn’t, so not sure of the point of the zippy steel structure underneath. It’s pretty much the same … Continue reading Fed Square Metro entrance fail →

8 June 2016: ‘Peak Hour 1970’, Argus Weekend Magazine, August 1943. Commuter heli-things taking off from the Argus building, cnr of Eliz & La Trobe, with very #BuckRogers #artdeco buildings beyond, only the state library done and Russell St police station remain familiar! Part of #thehistoryofthefuture exhibition at the #citygallery.

7 June 2024 A stroll around the streets next to Balaclava station, starting with a rather unloved ex-corner shop, then a mix of Victorian timber cottages, some Edwardian red brick ones, and infill built since the 80s that mostly seem to repeat the old gabled fronts, which is nice, though the tall brick ones don’t … Continue reading Balaclava cottages →

6 June 2025 This is St John’s Upper Beaconsfield, a rather odd but charming church dating from 1984, replacing one destroyed in the terrible 1983 Ash Wednesday fires. It was designed by local architect and planner Paul Reid, inspired by European village churches - and it does have a rural alpine look look about it, … Continue reading Postmodernism in the hills →

5 May 2019 : What was once Miettas in Alfred Place is one of those CBD interiors that should be protected but isn’t, though when Council issued a permit for a skinny office building on top, it included a requirement to retain the stairs and main upstairs rooms, though how they’d do that I’m not … Continue reading German Club/Miettas, Alfred Place →

4 June 2024 This delightful thing once stood on the corner of Acland Street and the Esplanade in St Kilda, where there’s now McDonald’s, and had quite a varied history. It was built as the Green Knoll Cafe in 1917, to a design by Gibbs & Finlay, with multiple domes joining those on the Sea … Continue reading Green Knoll / Wax Museum St Kilda →