Original post 7 September 2019: Right on the cnr of Swanston & Bourke is one of the ex- department stores in the CBD- the Leviathan Clothing Store. Big name but not so big building, and in fact it was originally smaller; as built in 1912-13 it was shorter on the Bourke Street side, as shown … Continue reading Leviathan Store, Bourke Street, 1913. →

Original post 15 April 2019: The Beehive Building, Elizabeth Street, 1935. Love how architect #JosephPlottel took the vertical proportions and said, nah, let’s go horizontal ! Plottel was pretty prolific in the interwar years, best known for his many flats in a range of styles from Tudor to modernist, and the excellent #FootscrayTownHall. This is … Continue reading Horizontally vertical Art Deco in Elizabeth Street →

Repost from 2016, still think it’s amazing : Orbis by #armarchitecture, #southmelbourne, 2015. Seen many images but I had to actually see it to understand it (just). I took quite a few images, and I'm just posting them all, nearly, so that you dear reader can understand too. The gold #fibreglass (no it’s @shapeshift.tech an … Continue reading Amazeballs in South Melbourne →

The #celticclub facade job has come out looking rather peculiar, which won’t be improved much by any greenery, and I suppose isn’t a surprise - the original architecture is so solid, with the tower just sprouting out and the detailing rather thin. It was built as the West Bourke Hotel in 1876 (top floor 1920s), … Continue reading Celtic Club facadism – not a building, and not the club anymore. →

15 April 2021 Coles Book Arcade in Bourke Street must have been a magical place - and impressive ! EW Cole opened this emporium of books in 1883, with new publications on the ground floor, second hand on the first floor (and soon added ornaments on the top floor!). He provided chairs for people to … Continue reading Coles Book Arcade, 1883-1928 →

Repost April 14, 2019: The sunken offices at the back of the #ParliamentOfVictoria by @peterelliott.architects are very nice and a good solution to the space issue and you can hardly see it from the street anyway but of course I think my plan would have been better, if a little more expensive. Finish the side … Continue reading Parliament House, unfinished →

October 2025 The amazing Roy Grounds house, Hill Street, Toorak, 1953, is up for sale, maybe $2.5 mill for a piece of modernist history. I took pic 1 in 2018, didn’t realise it was so unassuming. Bold plan, with a fun use of geometry - a square with all rooms looking into a central circular … Continue reading Roy Grounds House and flats, Toorak, 1953 →

Interesting project I came across in #Elwood a couple of weeks ago (on a rare trip out) - ‘Ensemble’ by @kavellarisurbandesign; apartments starting at $1.5mill. Made me think about neighbourhood character, and how there’s never any requirement to meet it, though Elwood is very mixed, Edwardian houses and postwar flats, but no big bold massive … Continue reading Contemporary development in Elwood →

11 April 2021 The old #RussellTeaRoom on King Street is up for sale; #LolaRussell and her husband George had to move out aged 95 because the side wall has become unstable and they couldn’t afford the repairs. George died soon after, and Lola is now 99 and in a nursing home, so the family now … Continue reading Old Russell Tea Rooms, King Street. →

In the early days of cinema, some venues were open air summer affairs, and there were a number in St Kilda. The #ParadisePictures were created in the (large) front garden of a mansion on the southeast corner of Alfred Square (where the St Moritz was later built) in 1906, and lasted to WW1 (didn’t help … Continue reading Open Air Cinema in Edwardian St Kilda →