Repost 2017: From this angle the new 35 Spring Street (in a variation on #BatesSmart patterned #glass curtain wall house style) is just a tad #dominating. Partly because the pattern, which I quite like, is in blocks that are often two or three storeys high, so it makes everything else look small, but the most … Continue reading 35 Spring Street, bit too big →

May 2018, update 2026 One of Melbourne’s few ‘flatiron’ buildings, a branch of the #ColonialBankofAustralasia, built at the height of the #landboom in 1889, designed by the prolific firm #SmithandJohnson (who also designed their long demolished HQ in Elizabeth Street in 1883, pic 5). Very nice articulation of paired Ionic columns and piers, which there … Continue reading Colonial Flatiron →

Repost this day 2019: The back end of the #StateLibraryOfVictoria was built in 1906, and has a very well proportioned classical #portico entrance with a little Baroque scroll flourish, but the upper level is intriguing, being so stripped down it becomes almost Modernist, could be something from the 1930s. This end was supposed to be … Continue reading Museum front, Russell Street →

Yesterday was #WorldArtDecoDay, so here’s my belated contribution- the fabulous but very short lived Park Theatre in Albert Park, opened 1939, closed 1962, and demolished for a petrol station soon after (its now the Albert park library). It was designed by cinema specialists #TaylorAndSoilleux, who did very inventive work, not your typical streamlined or jazzy … Continue reading Park Theatre, our best Deco cinema only lasted 23 years. →

Repost from this day in 2019: The 1934 lobbies at #HerMajestysTheatreMelbourne are a bit on the plain side imho; nice details, but there’s lots of blank wall between them. [found some original photos, the walls seem to have had a coloured textured finish, plus the nice light fittings and flowers made a difference]. Just noticed … Continue reading Her Majesty’s Theatre lobbies, 1934 →

Repost from 9 March 2017: Fabulous #GothicRevival house in #EastMelbourne, designed by #JosephReedArchitect in 1861. Shows how Reed could go from classical to gothic (and later polychrome brick Romanesque) with ease. (eg #StateLibraryVictoria, #MelbourneTown Hall, #WesleyChurchMelbourne and #RipponLeaEstate). Built for Deputy Surveyor-General, Clement Hodgkinson, who designed a few things himself, like the 1859 layout of … Continue reading Gothic Revival in East Melbourne →

Not Melbourne but Quite Interesting - I had no idea that around London new outer suburban houses were so historicist ! I sort of like them, nice brickwork, nice details, but a bit toyland scale, and obviously deliberately scattered in different styles to create interest, but still, all the same really. At least they have … Continue reading The London suburbs are ….. Victorian (style) →

The restoration of the New Council Chamber at #TradesHallMelbourne was in the Age recently, so I went to conservation architects @lovellchen webpage and borrowed all these images- and it turns out only the painted wall is original, the rest is sympathetic but not at all like the original, lost in a fire in c1962. It … Continue reading Trades Hall Council Chamber restoration →

April 2021 Some more #LostMelbourne, and rather surprisingly demolished in 1982! All part of a compromise to get the Rialto towers built, while saving the original Rialto. The first two pics are both c1982 from the @nationaltrustvic files, which I happen to have from work from 2016 for an app called Lost! 100 cbd places … Continue reading Robbs Building, demolished 1982 →

The ‘featurist’ bank from Robin Boyd’s 1960 book The Australian Ugliness looks suspiciously like the 1956 Commonwealth Bank on Elizabeth Street, still there, painted over, but recognisable, and #heritagelisted. Would Boyd have eventually changed his mind if he’d lived longer than 1971?