Repost 2019: This small but cute Art Deco block on #HoddleStreet in #EastMelbourne has an odd splay and steps back down the side - not just to offer a nicer side garden, but in order not to build on the #HurstbridgeLine ! Which was connected to the city via this cutting and tunnel through a … Continue reading Flats on the edge →

Repost 2018: The #MelbourneMint, the second best thing by #JJClark after the Treasury Building. A fine #RenaissancePalazzo design featuring paired #ionic columns on the #pianonobile. This was the admin building for a complex that included smelting and stamping the gold sovereigns that were i think English pounds, as this was a branch of the #RoyalMint. … Continue reading The Mint →

Repost 2019: 10,12 and 14 #PowlettStreet, #EastMelbourne, 1886, all matching and perfectly intact. And all named after English places, where of course most Melburnians came from in the 19thC. Exeter, which is in Devon, and Edgcombe, which isn’t a place in the Uk hmm. Update: Edgecombe is a name for some cottages in a town … Continue reading English place names, East Melbourne →

Repost 2016: Spencer Street first opened in 1859, and grew as a collection of buildings from various periods, inadequate by 1891 when a grand new building was proposed, sadly never built (possibly designed by Mr Snow of the Existing Lines Branch of the Railways). They did built the enormous offices on Spencer Street, planned at … Continue reading Spencer Street Station, almost →

Repost 2017: Just when you think something is old enough to be worthy of protection, it gets changed. It happens about the 30 year mark. This one was built in 1988, so pretty close! Sad to see the #Postmodern grid covered by #parametric #foldedplate (so shiny) #222ExhibitionStreet, #DentonCorkerMarshall; new work by @graypuksand. So much for … Continue reading Postmodern cruelty →

October 2021 Rather amazing house in Hawthorn for sale thought I’d share - the real estate agents say it was built 1876, but been abandoned ‘a good 10 years’ - clearly after they started renovating. It’s in Yarra Grove, in that funny area between Hawthorn Station and Leonda that’s only got a couple of ways … Continue reading Abandoned house in Hawthorn →

3 October 2014: Early 1880s #terracehouses barry street #southcarlton, or at least the front sections. In the late 90s #melbourneuniversity was moving into south carlton and was going to #demolish all the terraces - a furore ensued and in the end two houses were dem, the rest retained to two room depth (#frontportionism ?) And … Continue reading Barry Street Carlton →

4 October 2017: A pair of terraces at 86-88 #CollinsStreet in the #ParisEnd. Built in 1872, designed by #JamesGall, some of the grand houses in the area, the ‘Harley Street of Melbourne’, often occupied by well to do doctors in the 19thC, with surgeries at ground level. A third terrace was demolished in the early … Continue reading Grand terraces, Collins Street →

Repost 2018: The rather nice #ToorakBowlsClub, a timber vernacular structure, first part dating from 1914 - might be the symmetrical gabled bit on the left - with the other part featuring #neoclassical columns and multi pane windows, maybe it’s #capecodstyle ? apparently dating from the 1950s. Can’t find anything much on Trove, but @stonningtonlibraries has … Continue reading Toorak Bowls Club →

3 October 2019: Rather plain, but important as one of the few places built before WW2 designed by a female architect - a #blockofflats in George St #EastMelbourne, built 1933, designed by Edith Ingpen, the first woman to graduate from the Uni Melb course, and I think the only sole #femalearchitect working in Victoria in … Continue reading Edith Ingpen, early female architect →