Tag: Interwar

Kurrajong is a tree not a bird 😁

Kurrajong is a tree not a bird 😁

#KurrajongHouse in #CollinsStreet near the Regent is fine to look at but curiously without a clear style; it’s sort of squared off abstracted classical but really quite plain except that it’s all windows, mostly in the protruding central bay. Built 1936-27, it was designed by #RMandMHKing, a father and son team, better known for houses, … Continue reading Kurrajong is a tree not a bird 😁

Big old office building, National Bank, Geelong, 1928

Big old office building, National Bank, Geelong, 1928

I like it, nice detailing, but I think it’s rather #topheavy, the way the lower levels are inset behind the #faience #ioniccolumns. #NationalBankofAustralasia, #MalopStreet, #Geelong, completed Jan 1928, designed by #TompkinsandTompkins from Melbourne, squeezing it in with all their other work! Chamber us intact too, though you can hardly see the columns through the clutter.

Chart House c1940 and Melbourne House 1923, Little Bourke Street

Chart House c1940 and Melbourne House 1923, Little Bourke Street

Chart House c1940, architect unknown - pretty radical for 1940, looks so 50s, except for the #steelframedwindows, with opening leaves, 50s would be aluminium frames. I don’t love it, but it’s very interesting. Rather oddly the heritage study by @lovellchen says the front was altered in the 50s, but the side wasn’t, so only the … Continue reading Chart House c1940 and Melbourne House 1923, Little Bourke Street

The Gatwick vs The Block

The Gatwick vs The Block

October 2018 For anyone who watched #TheBlock2018, here’s a reminder of what the inside of the #TheGatwickHotel looked like before they demolished it all in order to create empty shells for the contestants to decorate. I’m still fuming that the @CityOfPortPhillip didn’t lift a finger to try to save any of this (and the perfectly … Continue reading The Gatwick vs The Block

St Columbas, Elwood, 1929, AA Fritsch

St Columbas, Elwood, 1929, AA Fritsch

One of the many many #redbrick #Romanesque/#Byzantine/#Gothic #CatholicChurches designed by the wonderfully named #AugustusFritsch, aka #AAFritsch. If you see a church like that anywhere in Victoria it’s probably his, or maybe #FritschandFritsch, in partnership with his son. His first churches were in this style, nicely eclectic Edwardian in the 1900s, which he barely changed for … Continue reading St Columbas, Elwood, 1929, AA Fritsch

When Art Deco arrived in Victoria

When Art Deco arrived in Victoria

This article appeared in Spirit of Progress, Journal of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia, Autumn 2016 As an architecture student in the 1980s, we were taught that the first fully bona-fide Art Deco building in Melbourne was the delightful Yule House designed b Oakley & Parkes, in Little Collins Street. Five storeys … Continue reading When Art Deco arrived in Victoria