20 November 2023 This striking Deco landmark on Wattletree Road near Glenferrie Road Malvern was built for Coughlin’s Dairy in 1941, providing office space and a milk bar next to their earlier diary. Unusual long thin proportions probably because it was squeezed into one side of their site, then exaggerated by adding a clocktower. The … Continue reading Deco dairy in Malvern →

Original post 20 November 2017: St Leonards Brighton, architect Bruce Kemp, 1956. Early modernist church design for Victoria, and an unusual one. It’s modern but traditional, managing to still look like a church. Almost European expressionist, but likely influenced by Coventry Cathedral, with those tall stepped plan windows (meant to be stained glass like Coventry, … Continue reading A delightful fish-based Modernist church in Brighton →

Original post 21 November 2017: St Patricks Murrumbeena, #RichardEllis, 1963. Unusual oval shape, diagonally facing the street corner; nice textured #concreteblocks in patterns like stonework, catches the light. Smart idea to just make one pointy end all glass to mark the entrance, rather than adding a porch (though there is a little one). Simple interior, … Continue reading An oval church ? Why not ! →

16 November 2023 A bit of Lost Melbourne that seems often overlooked - the great grand Bank of Victoria, built in Collins Street in 1861, just to the left of the Centreway Arcade. It was designed by Alfred L Smith (later as part of Smith & Johnson did the GPO), and was based on the … Continue reading Bank of Victoria, Collins Street →

14 November 2017: Parliament Station, completed January 1983, designed by McIntyre Partnership (firm founded by #PeterMcIntyre), the second to open of the 10 year long #cityloop project. Love the bizarre but fun #column tops, full scale replicas of the #TuscanOrder columns of the front 1889 collonnade of the nearby Parliament House. The miniature classical surrounds … Continue reading Parliament Station, 1983 →

18 November 2023 The now beautifully restored Prahran Arcade is one of the most extravagant products of the 1880s boom, both in its scale and purpose, opening with great fanfare in July 1890. It was a huge risk, since the arcade only led to a Turkish baths at the rear, and Chapel Street was just … Continue reading Prahran Arcade →

9 October 2023 Delightful house in Gurner Street St Kilda, looking like a country cottage, with big trees in front, a messy flowery garden, and charming peeling paint. Not separately listed in the st kilda heritage study so all I can say is it was built before 1873, when it appears in the Vardy map, … Continue reading Country charm in St Kilda →

7 April 2023 There were two competitions for the design, neither built. The first image is the winner of the 1864 competition, by Reed & Barnes, sort of Renaissance with French chateau roofs (a bit odd in my option) . The second image (a bit vague) won an earlier competition in 1853, by Knight & … Continue reading Government House rejected designs →

6 October 2023: The Old Treasury Building was famously designed by JJ Clark when he was only 19 years old, and is regarded as one of the finest 19th Century public buildings in the country. It’s all quite remarkable. There’s a book on Clark by Andrew Dodd from 2012 which points out a probable source … Continue reading Old Treasury Building →

2 November 2023 So I haven’t finished my ‘Melbourne as it might have been if Hoddle had laid it out differently’ project – I’ve now done a series of plans for the eastern end of the city, one for every few decades, to more accurately lay it out (which I should have done first!). Major … Continue reading What Hoddle should have done, sequential plans →