6 May 2021 This is what the GPO looked like for it’s first 20 years - for ages I had assumed they just stopped without the top floor and with a stumpy tower - but actually it was meant to be like that, almost. It was #CrouchAndWilson that won an 1858 competition (2nd image), and … Continue reading GPO Melbourne, not finished – twice ! →

Repost from this day in 2017: The the 60 storey purple goodness of the #EQtower in #ABeckettStreet, another #ElenbergFraser. Don't mind this one, it's even got quite substantial setbacks and a proper podium - just not really a fan of fatter bases, or those balconies formed by just leaving out a pane of glass, but … Continue reading EQ, A’Beckett Street →

4 September 2023: The #ArtDeco #rocket of the 1935 #O'DonnellFountain, in the O'Donnell Gardens, both named after Edward O'Donnell, a St Kilda resident and grocer from the 1850s, then councillor from 1888 for forty-four years, and six times Mayor. He died in 1933, and enough people liked him enough to raise the £750 to build … Continue reading O’Donnell Fountain, 1935 →

May 2021 If this 1935 house in Brighton had survived a bit longer than c1988, it would have been put on #VictorianHeritageRegister as one of the most important examples of Bauhaus Modernism applied to a house in Victoria. Designed by #GeoffreyMewton, when in partnership with #RoyGrounds, it won first prize of the ‘drawings or photographs’ … Continue reading Stooke House, Brighton, 1935 →

Posted 13 March 2021 Today is the 150th anniversary of #TheAlfredHospital welcoming its first patient ! It was designed by Charles Webb (who later did the Windsor) in a kind of Flemish mode, with plenty of #polychromebrickwork, a relatively early example. His plan included multiple separate ward blocks, on the ‘nightingale’ principle of fresh air … Continue reading Alfred Hospital →

4 May 2018: Some more #LostMelbourne, but partially rescued too - these #atlantes once held up the 1880 colonial bank doorway, now an entry to the 1972 #Melbourneuniversity underground carpark. The #ColonialBankofAustralasia head office was one of the grand 19thC City banks, built 1880, cnr of Elizabeth Street and #littlecollinsstreet, oddly not amongst the grand … Continue reading Lost, but not completely →

Repost this day in 2019: More #SolSapir in fact some of his first, the Twin Towers, on the #UpperEsplanade, built in 1969, and there’s a photo from when they’re being finished ! Not my favourite #apartmenttowers at all, rather clunky chunky, not a lot of fun details, not a lot of view out, nice arches … Continue reading Sol Sapir, again ! →

Repost this day in 2017 : The #GeelongRegionalLibrary west side in the last rays of sunlight - fantastic sparkle. Definitely a #crystalline #grotto, shades of griffins capitol theatre perhaps, or the sparkle of thought within the #bigbrain. It's a #dome with #geodesic panels but it's not a #geodesicdome (I think). Actually not a dome but … Continue reading Geelong Library, ARM architecture, 2015 →

Repost from a visit in May 2019 : The fantastic #MintonTile floor of the vestibule of #ParliamentHouseMelbourne. It spells out a rather nice sentiment from Proverbs 11:14: ‘Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety’, even if half the time we don’t think much of our representatives, … Continue reading Parliament House interiors →

Some excellent #brickwork on these flats in #Elwood on the corner of Ormond Rd and Selwyn Street, which i recognised from adding to the wiki page on #MewtonAndGrounds; designed not long after they started their joint practice in late 1933, this shows that they weren’t Modernist or nothing, at least at first. Though in the … Continue reading Mewton & Grounds before they went modern →