29 February 2024 The poor state of the Royal Exhibition Building was in the Age yesterday, with campaigners pointing out it needs many more $ spent - the few cracks or bits missing outside don’t look too alarming, but the condition of the painted decoration under the dome is another matter. From photos in the … Continue reading Exhibition Buildings damaged murals
28 February 2024 You probably know this place as The Top of the Town, a brothel in Flinders Street near King Street - it’s a fairly nice building too, with a bit of a history. It was built in 1880 as Coffee Tavern No 2, one of the first of the ‘coffee palaces’ in the … Continue reading Coffee Taven No 2, Flinders Street
27 February 2024 😡 yet more facadism, of yet another corner pub, this time the 1925 Waterside Hotel on Flinders Street. It’s still going to be a drinking venue, but of completely different character to a pub, with a central courtyard and rising floors of perhaps private bars /dining rooms in one corner, all with … Continue reading Waterside Hotel facadism
26 February 2024 A very fine Renaissance Revival style facade in King St near Flinders, with typical rusticated base, and prominent first floor windows, all in carved bluestone. A style common for warehouses (indeed many building types) in the 1850s that just carried on, this one designed by A L Smith in 1873 for Zander’s … Continue reading Zander’s Store
Published in Spirit of Progress, journal of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia, Summer 2024. Many years ago someone showed me a rather striking Art Deco landmark in Armadale, Melbourne on Wattletree Road, just near Glenferrie Road, that features a small tower, complete with clocks, from which horizontal strip windows with ‘eyebrows’ above, … Continue reading Deco Dairy
24 February 2024 This fabulously overwrought facade on Flinders Street near King Street is a 1911 do-over of an earlier warehouse for the Savings Bank, the State Bank in its early days of expansion. This one, presumably here to cater to the maritime /warehouse trade, was designed by Claude E Merrett, in fruity Edwardian Baroque … Continue reading State Bank, Flinders Street, 1911
23 February 2024 The very imposing memorial to Queen Victoria in the Alexandra gardens, which was splashed with red paint by activists on Australia Day, is cleaned up now but some red still visible. I think it’s very grand, lots of nice sculpture, columns etc, and set on its own small hill with flower beds … Continue reading Alexandra Gardens
22 February 2024 Had to go way out east recently, and saw this - Dandenong Town Hall sits majestically on the main drag, looming over the traffic. Completed in 1890, at the height of the boom, it’s got the tower and elaborate renaissance revival details of so many built at that time. Quite a statement … Continue reading Dandenong Town Hall
20 February 2024 This nice domed pavilion in the Alexandra Gardens was built in 1913 as a memorial to Lady Janet Clarke, who died in 1909. The design by Mr H Black won a competition in 1912, and it was intended as a bandstand and a rest spot for the public. A rather Edwardian Baroque … Continue reading Lady Clarke Memorial Pavilion
19 February 2024 The new Glen Huntly Railway Station, opened late last year - quite a striking and attractive thing I think, I like the use of red bricks and a huge arch, a nice solid effect, which is counter intuitive given it’s all suspended over the lines. The tram stop is integrated, more or … Continue reading Glen Huntly Railway Station
If the Nazi's never took power, would Berlin have Europe's tallest skyscraper and East Prussia be a honeymoon destination ?
Storey of Melbourne 