Original post 27 May 2020 Is it just me ? This thing is wall made of marble and pale thin vertical bricks to a ‘secret courtyard’ bar replacing a row of 80s shops in Liverpool Street behind #JobWarehouse - id much prefer a wall made of #redbrick, like the Victorian warehouses next door, after all … Continue reading ‘Secret garden’ for Liverpool Street, with a tacky wall. →

Original post 25 May 2020 I’m still very annoyed about this development from the c1998 - ok, the church was abandoned and needed rescuing, but it didn’t need a shop built virtually in front- I mean the shop could have been to the right, or not at all, leaving the main diagonal view free. And … Continue reading Wesleyan Church St Kilda, surrounded. →

Original post 23 May 2020 Photos July 2019 We won! The @heritagecouncilvic agreed that #FootscrayPsychiatricCentre, completed 1977, designed by James Fong within the #PublicWorksDepartment, is a worthy addition to the state register, both as a good example of #Brutalism (couldn’t get more Brutal actually, though always designed to be screened and softened by native trees) … Continue reading Footscray Psychiatric Hospital now on the VHR. →

Original post 25 May 2020, updated 2025 A great pair of ArtDeco apartment buildings on George Street in East Melbourne; they back on to the back of Garden Avenue where all the flats were designed by #IGAnderson, who probably designed these too, c1940. The left one is more streamlined, the other is more Georgianish. I … Continue reading Art Deco pair, East Melbourne →

Original post 22 May 2020 I dont hate it but I don’t like it much - a new thing in Coventry Street #SouthMelbourne opposite the market - a lack of imagination and relationship to context, I mean this black brick and the pierced brickwork, it’s just 60s revival popular, they could have had fun with … Continue reading Too contemporary, South Melbourne →

Original post 21 May 2020 Photos 9 February 2020 Imagine living in a house entirely made of thick corrugated and cast iron ? And trying to sleep in the attic in summer ? That’s what lots of Melburnians did from the 1850s, and it was a step up from living in tents and badly built … Continue reading Prefabricated iron houses for gold rush Melbourne. →

Original post 20 May 2020 Photos 20 Sept 2019 A fine pair of buildings at the east end of #CollinsStreet, part of the reason it’s called the ‘#ParisEnd’. This photo is from last Sept, they’re normally obscured by #trees. The left is #TheChanonry, 1912, by #BatesPeeblesAndSmart, exactly when they were doing the State Library dome, … Continue reading The Chanonry and Victor Horsley, Paris End. →

Original post 19 May 2020 ‘The proposal references the colourful graffiti art of #HosierLane, and adds to the vibrancy’ @bharchitects ....😂☹️ #gentrification at work. After @melbourne_heritage_action complained last year they’ve come back with ....a 0.5m setback, which of course makes no difference whatsoever. And I’m all for colour, but this is just childish. Preferably don’t … Continue reading Gentrification in Hosier Lane →

Original post 18 May 2020 Pretty good match up I think ! #EsplanadeHotelStKilda, as it was from 1878-1920, and now. It was built initially to be three grand terraces, but before it was completed had become an hotel, the Esplanade. It replaced a hotel, so why the terrace idea I don’t know; maybe the market … Continue reading Esplanade Hotel, then and now. →

Original post Saturday 16 May 2020, 12.30 pm ☹️ just an hr ago the 1888 #SpurlingHouse was totally destroyed by fire. It was by NSW architect #JohnHorburyHunt, was the only example of the US #ShingleStyle in Victoria. It was heavily damaged in a fire in 2015, and ever since the owners have literally left it … Continue reading Spurling House destroyed by fire, this time completely. →