Repost this day 2019: The back of the old #HoytsMidCity cinema centre is more chunky-#brutalist than the front. And surprisingly intact, even the rich red #pebblemix finish. Built 1970 as a speculative venture with two screens, a squishy arcade and parking, by the entrepreneurial architect Gordon Banfield who had also developed the Total Carpark, so … Continue reading Pink Brutalism →

30 June 2021 Right there on #ToorakRoad, there’s Langi Flats, a bit of Chicago 1900s #PrairieSchool, as interpreted by #WalterBurleyGriffin and #MarionMahonyGriffin in 1925-6. It was a rebuild of a 1915 house in front, and new build behind- that bit has plainer walls but more exciting geometric patterned gates and panels below the windows. The … Continue reading Langi Flats, Toorak →

29 June 2021 - repost this day 4 years ago, where now there’s a work site and big hole : South African Soldiers Memorial (ie #BoerWar), #DomaineInterchange, 1924, #IrwinandStevenson. Thought id document the things that are about to be dismantled or in the case of the trees chopped down to allow excavation for the Domain … Continue reading Boer War Memorial and Anzac Station →

Repost this day 2018: 🙀 #ClarenceHouse, 1898, of which most was left intact, BUT, thanks to a 2006 #VCAT decision ‘#onbalance weighing up #developmentrights and #heritagelisting’ they thought this was a good compromise. dammit. Through the 80s and 90s it had been a nightclub known as #TheMansion and surprisingly it’s got a Wikipedia entry outlining … Continue reading The Mansion, once →

I quite like the base of #Australia108, it’s quite surreal, all mirrored balconies supporting a lot of plants, a pretty good screen for the #carpark. And keeps your eye at ground level rather than making you crave your neck looking up at the 100 floors of shiny glass. The thinness of the preserved facade isn’t … Continue reading Australia 108 →

Repost this day 2019: Eek just imagine ! From the #VictorianRailways newsletter April 1969. The plan was for tower blocks like the #GasAndFuelTowers to be built over all the Jolimont railyards and replacing #FlindersStreetStation ! The railways had control of the air space and didn’t need planning permission. But it was expensive to do, and … Continue reading Demolish Flinders Street for this ? →

27 June 2021, updated 2025 The third important #Moderne house in the Toorak area is #Carlaminda, cnr Toorak and Lansell; looks like a block of flats but actually a big house taking up most of the block. Built in 1938, the architects were #RhysHopkins and Shannon. Repost 2021: Carlaminda, cnr Toorak Road and Lansell; looks … Continue reading Carlaminda, Moderne mansion in Toorak →

Repost this day 2017: OK I get it now, it's in #PortMelbourne, it's called #Aqueous, so they must be #bubbles. Like in the surf. But the bathrooms only have showers. Harchitecture. #RotheLowman. Update 2021: the gap on the left was that hold out old mans house. The exterior curves don’t show inside much, though most … Continue reading Bubbly in Port Melbourne →

Repost this day 2016: A glaring example of facadism, where only the front wall and short bit of side wall was retained, and then the dominated by the black box of the carpark levels - this got a permit way back in 2010 from Justin Madden, though a second design delayed starting and it is … Continue reading Facadism no 1. →

25 June 2021 I posted about the threat to this great little place in #AlbertParkVillage two years ago; it’s a cute doctors surgery and flats built in 1934 around an 1895 house (B&W pic). In the 90s to 2016 film director Paul Cox lived and worked here. It was proposed to be replaced by a … Continue reading Drs Surgery Albert Park. →