Original 20 January 2021: Spotted in #AlmaRoad St Kilda - a delightful house, with a corner turret and side entrance. Could be c1890 or c1900. Doesn’t appear to have any info in the port phillip heritage review, but is graded as ‘significant’. Update 2024: for sale now, real estate listing shows inside is grand but … Continue reading Eastcliff St Kilda, c1888 very advanced style →

Original post 26 January 2019: If you poke around, the interiors of the #ANAbuilding in Elizabeth Street near Flinders Lane has all these Australian animals here and there ! The #AustralianNativesAssociation was a #mutualsociety from the 19thC, providing insurance, sickness benefits etc for members. Being National by nature, they used ‘100% Australian timbers and marbles’ … Continue reading Australiana at ANA, Elizabeth Street →

Original post 22 January 2018: Bank of NSW, City Road, Southbank, 1932, #GodfreySpowers, rather nice and very unusual stylised Romanesque, with simple lines and zig zag details that look rather Art Deco. This bank must have served the low rise industrial and warehouse business that once dominated in this area. Now it’s a tiny #mote … Continue reading Great bank, City Road, →

19 January 2024: The FB page Cinemas & Theatres of Australia has these great images of the Forum - it opened in Feb 1929 as the State Theatre, and while the interior was ‘a Florentine courtyard’, the exterior was Moorish, and was painted in many colours - ochre, jade green, sepia and Prussian blue, as … Continue reading Forum Theatre →

17 January 2024 Rather excellent. A design by Arthur Purnell (Purnell & Pierce) for an office block in 1937, but no indication of where or for who. It’s rather more striking than anything actually built in the CBD in the 30s - super streamlined, with horizontal window framing and multiple curved corners. Maybe if it … Continue reading Unbuilt Streamlined delight. →

Original post 19 January 2018: Call me mad but I’ve always liked this one, in Little Bourke, off Swanston, built 1990. Just, you know, such an expression of inexpensive #Pomo; square #precast units, square windows, square proportions (built up to the #40mheightlimit), with the corner ‘expressed’ by that darker coloured non-turret, just hanging there. Built … Continue reading Simple Pomo hotel →

Original post 18 January 2018: Tsoshaan Mansions, #ArthurPurnell, 1917, cnr Malvern rd & Irving Road, Toorak. Only real estate photos, but I wanted to see what Purnells other ‘Chinese’ style design apart from his own house was like. The lychgate has a definite oriental feel, with that outer lower pitched roof, with very deep eaves, … Continue reading Oriental style in Toorak →

Original post 16 January 2018; Buxtons, also known as the #TalmaBuilding, #SwanstonStreet, opposite the Town Hall, #WSLaw, 1885. Having just found the old sketch (thanks #NGVmelbourne) I can see the ornate verandah rebuilt in the 1980s isn’t half as ornate as the original 1880s one ! You can also see how it went from being … Continue reading Buxton/Talma building →

Original post 19 January 2020: Here’s the very nice but controversial renovated #marblesstairs at the #StateLibraryVictoria; it seems that because each step was worn unevenly, it didn’t meet the newish National Construction Standards, nor OH&S, and rather then replace they put new (different) marble over the old, with a new regulation higher balustrade too. Quite … Continue reading State Library stairs →

31 December 2024 Don’t know why exactly but I quite like this one - of all the boring or intrusive or cheap looking mid rise infill around town these days. Perhaps it’s the level of detail of the boxes, that is to say, ins and outs and colours, creating some variety. Also that the top … Continue reading Infill in Richmond →