Architecture of Melbourne
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Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...
, the capital of the state of
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
and second most populous city in Australia, is characterised by a wide variety of styles dating from the early years of European settlement to the present day. The city is particularly noted for its mix of
Victorian architecture Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian w ...
and modern buildings, with 52
skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...
(buildings 150 metres or taller) in the
city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...
, the most of any city in the Southern Hemisphere. In the wake of the 1850s Victoria gold rush, Melbourne entered a lengthy boom period, earning the moniker '' Marvellous Melbourne'' to represent its wealth and grandeur. By the 1880s, it had become one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
, second only to
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. The wealth generated during this period is reflected in much of the city's grand, richly ornamented Victorian architecture, as well as the height of some buildings, with the 12-story APA Building (1889) rivalling other
early skyscraper The earliest stage of skyscraper design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, but significan ...
s in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
and
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. In the post WW2 era, as in many western cities, Melbourne's Victorian heritage was not valued, and much was demolished, eventually leading to protests and the establishment of the
Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...
in 1974. Buildings on the register's heritage list include the
Royal Exhibition Building The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage-listed building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built in 1879–1880 as part of the international exhibition movement, which presented over 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 around the glo ...
, the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
, the
State Library of Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...
and
Flinders Street railway station Flinders Street railway station is a train station located on the corner of Flinders Street, Melbourne, Flinders and Swanston Street, Swanston streets in the Melbourne city centre, central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria (Austral ...
. The postwar period ushered in a new boom, with the city hosting the
1956 Summer Olympics The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, from 22 November to 8 December 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, w ...
, and the lifting of height limits at the same time led a boom in high rise office building, beginning with
ICI House 1 Nicholson St., (formerly ICI House) is a 19-storey office building in Nicholson Street, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Begun in 1955 to house the headquarters of the Australian subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries (since spun of ...
, itself now in the Heritage Register. The ensuing years of the 1970s and 1980s saw the loss of some of Melbourne's most remarkable Victorian buildings, notably the
Federal Coffee Palace The Federal Hotel and Coffee Palace was a large elaborate Second Empire style temperance hotel in the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, built in 1888 at the height of Melbourne's Boom era, and controversially demolished in 1973. Located on C ...
and APA Building. Since the 2000s, the central city and Southbank area has seen a new boom in high rise construction, with some blocks of the city developed to very high densities, and the tallest buildings in Australia, including the 297m (92 floors)
Eureka Tower Eureka Tower is a skyscraper located in the Southbank precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the exterior was completed on 1 June 2006. The plaza was finished in June 2006 and the building was officia ...
, which was the tallest residential tower in the world when completed in 2006. The juxtaposition of old and new has given Melbourne a reputation as a city of no characterising architectural style, but rather an accumulation of buildings dating from the present back until the
European settlement of Australia European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe a ...
.


History


Settlement

Melbourne was first settled by Europeans in 1835, when rival entrepreneurs from Tasmania,
John Batman John Batman (21 January 18016 May 1839) was an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer. He is best known for his role in the founding of Melbourne. Born and raised in the then-British colony of New South Wales, Batman settled in Van D ...
and
John Pascoe Fawkner John Pascoe Fawkner (20 October 1792 – 4 September 1869) was an early Australian pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land (now called Tasmania), to sai ...
sent expeditions looking for sheep pasture. Batman famously stated that “This is the place for a village”, generally believed to refer to the point on the
Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, ( Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower s ...
where freshwater was found (near today's Queensbridge). The land to the north of the Yarra was a gentle valley between hills to the east and west, and riding ground to the north. In 1837, government surveyor Robert Hoddle laid out a grid of streets, approximately 30 metres wide (considerably wider than
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...
streets) between the two hills and aligned with the river. Until the 1850s, the settlement of Melbourne grew at a moderate but steady pace. Boom era (1850s–1890s) Following this early settlement period, just after the state of Victoria was separated from NSW in 1851,
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
was discovered, and thousands of people flocked to the city from the United Kingdom, as well as Europe and the United States, to seek their fortune on the Victorian
goldfields Goldfield or Goldfields may refer to: Places * Goldfield, Arizona, the former name of Youngberg, Arizona, a populated place in the United States * Goldfield, Colorado, a community in the United States * Goldfield, Iowa, a city in the United Sta ...
. As a result of the
Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...
, Melbourne's population grew from 4,000 in 1837 to 300,000 in 1854. Approximately £100 million worth of gold was discovered in the Victorian fields in the 1850s. Thanks to the immense wealth generated, many large public buildings were built or begun including the
State Library A national library is established by the government of a nation to serve as the pre-eminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public libraries, they rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuab ...
, Parliament House, the
Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
, and the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
. The gold rush was followed by a growth in pastoral wealth, the development of local industries, railways, suburbs, shops, and ports. The 1880s saw the price of land start to boom, and London banks were eager to extend loans to men of vision who capitalised on this by speculation, and grand, elaborate offices, hotel and department stores in the city, and endless suburban subdivisions. This was the growth that so astonished visiting journalist George Augustus Sala in 1885, that he dubbed the city "Marvellous Melbourne". Though many of the largest commercial buildings constructed during the 1880s Boom have been
lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography * Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland *Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
, many other fine examples still stand today, including the
Royal Exhibition Building The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage-listed building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built in 1879–1880 as part of the international exhibition movement, which presented over 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 around the glo ...
, the Gothic Bank (1883), the Hotel Windsor (1884), the Venetian Gothic Old Stock Exchange (1888), and Twentyman & Askew's 'high-rise' Stalbridge Chambers (1890).


1900s–1940s: Edwardian to Art deco

The turn of the century in Melbourne marked the
federation of Australia The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Western ...
in 1901. The 1880s landboom had been followed by an equally large crash, the collapse of building societies and some banks, and an almost complete halt in construction by 1893. Sydney fared somewhat better, grew faster, and overtook Melbourne in size and population by 1901. Melbourne remained important thanks to its status as Australia's (interim) capital city, the home of the
Commonwealth of Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. The Victorian Parliament House on
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
was handed over to house the parliament of Australia, while the Victorian parliament moved to the Exhibition Buildings. Economic revival in the 1900s saw a resurgence of construction. In this period, architects began to look less to England for inspiration, and more to the United States, particularly the
Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
. A major landmark of this period was built when it was finally decided to replace the ad hoc collection of train sheds
Flinders Street Station Flinders Street railway station is a train station located on the corner of Flinders Street, Melbourne, Flinders and Swanston Street, Swanston streets in the Melbourne city centre, central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria (Austral ...
with a grand terminus. A competition was held in 1899, with 17 entries received. The competition was essentially for the detailed design of the station building, since the location of the concourse, entrances, the track and platform layout, the type of platform roofing and even the room layout to some extent was already decided. The first prize, at £500, went to railway employees James Fawcett and HPC Ashworth of Fawcett and Ashworth in 1899. Their design, titled ''Green Light'', was of
French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...
style and included a large dome and tall clock tower. The train shed over the platforms was intended to have many arched roofs running north-south, but this was never built. Over the next few years, the design was altered with an additional floor, and work on the station building itself began in 1905. Ballarat builder Peter Rodger was awarded the £93,000 contract and the station was originally to be clad in stone, but this exceeded the allocated budget. Red brick with cement render was chosen for the Edwardian style building. Work on the dome began the following year, and delayed construction saw a Royal Commission appointed in May 1910. The Way and Works Branch of the
Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...
took over the project, the station being essentially finished by mid-1909. The verandah along Flinders Street and the concourse roof and verandah along Swanston Street were not completed until after the official opening in 1910. The building has been repainted five times in its history, and the last repaint occurred in 2017. The most recent paint job was conducted to match the original colours as closely as possible, obtained through numerous samples of chipped paint which revealed the original colours after being cut in a polyester resin tube. From 1905 there was much debate about the merit of taller buildings in the city centre, and the idea of a height limit, influenced by the City Beautiful movement, gained popularity. There was also a concern to preserve light and air at lower levels, especially in the ‘little’ streets. Eventually, as part of a suite of rules that also ensured fire proof construction, the City of Melbourne passed a byelaw mandating a 132 ft limit. It was (and still is) popularly believed that this was as high as fire ladders could reach, but in fact the longest ladder was 87 ft, and the limit was based on proportions, being 1+ 1/3 times the 99 ft main street width. This limit stayed in force until the late 1950s, ensuring an evenness to many built up streets. The styles of the early 20th century included
Federation architecture Federation architecture is the architectural style in Australia that was prevalent from around 1890 to 1915. The name refers to the Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901, when the Australian colonies collectively became the Commonwealth of ...
, Stripped Classical, and then
art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
. The rise of the suburbs in Melbourne meant that large acres of land could be purchased and homes could be designed in appointed styles of the land owners and home builders. One of the most popular styles was art deco, and several public city buildings were designed in this style, including the
Manchester Unity Building The Manchester Unity Building is an Art Deco Gothic inspired office and retail building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, constructed in 1931–32 for the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. The soaring stepped corner tower on a ...
, which mixed art deco with Gothic Revival. The building was constructed in 1932 by the Manchester Unity I.O.O.F. in Victoria. Other buildings in the art deco style include the
Myer Emporium Myer (stylised MYER, sometimes known as Myers) is an Australian mid-range to upscale department store chain. It trades in all Australian states and one of Australia's two self-governing territories. Myer retails a broad range of products a ...
(1920), T & G Building (1929), the Australasian Catholic Assurance Building (1935) and Mitchell House (1937)–which more closely resembles the Streamline Moderne style. These contemporary styles mirrored an increasingly diversifying city, which reflected the changing international architectural fashions. The Second World War saw a halt to construction by 1942. By the late 1940s, Melbourne boasted an array of styles the eras in which it prospered, including Victorian, Gothic, Queen Anne and the most flourishing style of the early 20th century–art deco.


1950s–70s: Modernist attitudes

The arrival of the 1950s saw contemporary high rise offices constructed and the
ICI House 1 Nicholson St., (formerly ICI House) is a 19-storey office building in Nicholson Street, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Begun in 1955 to house the headquarters of the Australian subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries (since spun of ...
, built in 1955, was Australia's tallest building at the time.Australian National Heritage listing for the ICI Building
/ref> ICI House, breaking Melbourne's long standing 132 ft height limit, was the first International Style skyscraper in the country. It symbolised progress, modernity, efficiency and the booming corporate power in a postwar Melbourne. Its development also paved way for the construction of other modern high-rise office buildings, thus changing the shape of Melbourne's already diverse urban centre. Melbourne was the first city in Australia to undergo a post-war high-rise boom beginning in the late 1950s, though
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...
in the following decades built more, with over 50 high-rise buildings constructed between the 1970s–90s. The 1950s and 1960s was a period before heritage controls were enacted, and many commentators now view these years of rampant demolition as one akin to urban vandalism.
Whelan the Wrecker Whelan the Wrecker was a family owned and operated demolition company that operated from 1892 until 1992, based in Brunswick in the city of Melbourne. The company became well known through the 1950s and 1970s when signs stating that "Whelan the ...
, the most successful demolition company, was responsible for most of the destruction of Melbourne's historic buildings. A vast number of city hotels also closed in the 1950s, as a result of blighting liquor laws, which meant that the cost of running a licensed venue outstripped the return. This may have explained the dwindling patronage of Melbourne's grand hotels in the 1950s and 60s. Another venue that shaped Melbourne's early architectural form is the pub, a licensed drinking establishment traditionally built on corners within the inner-city and city centre, usually no more than two-storeys tall. In the 1920s, there were about 100 corner pubs in Melbourne but this figure diminished to 45 by the 1960s. Today there are approximately 12 operating in the CBD – including The Metropolitan, which is located on the corner of William Street, Melbourne, William Street, and first served beer in 1854. In 1972, as a result of sustained pressure from the National Trust, Victorian Parliament amended the Town and Country Planning Association (Victoria), Town and Country Planning Act to include the "conservation and enhancement of buildings, works, objects and sites specified as being of architectural, historical or scientific interest". The act went onto specify the prohibition of "pulling down", "removal" or "decoration or defacement" to any such building. Because only specified sites were to be protected, the local councils across Melbourne had the task of allocating buildings and places that warranted protection. The City of Melbourne council specified the entire CBD as an area of significance in 1973. However, this blanket protection measure came unstuck in 1975 when the council was threatened with compensation payments to developers if their plans were rejected on heritage grounds, and the issue of compensation was not settled until 1982. At the same time, the Historic Buildings Preservation Act was passed in 1974, protecting at first only 100 places across the state. This was soon expanded to include many of the central city’s finest buildings, though only a handful of the commercial landmarks, and listing did not necessarily ensure preservation. In this context, as well as the many places demolished in the 1960s sometimes without a plan for a replacement, "developers white elephant schemes for central Melbourne proceeded virtually unchecked throughout the 70s", resulting in widespread loss of historic buildings. Heritage listing by the City of Melbourne did not properly occur until 1982, with the listing of about 300 Notable buildings, and large areas declared Heritage Precincts, with the added protection of the re-imposition of the height limit in the central retail area between Russell and Elizabeth Streets, and much lower limits in places such Chinatown, Bourke Hill, and Hardware Lane, which was also pedestrianised. Controversy arose in 2016 after the historic Corkman Irish Pub in Carlton, Victoria, Carlton was illegally demolished overnight by developer Raman Shaqiri, resulting in the State Planning Minister pursuing an order (via the Victorian Administrative Appeals Tribunal) for the two-storey pub to be rebuilt. The site owners were fined Australian Dollar, AUD$1.325 million after pleading guilty to the process. The site of the pub, which was built in 1858 and was once called the Carlton Inn Hotel, is currently a temporary carpark.


Skyscraper boom

Between the late 1970s and 1980s, Melbourne's skyline reached new heights with the construction of several office buildings. Whelan the Wrecker went out of business in the early 1990s and heritage laws were tightened into the mid 1990s. In 1972, 140 William Street (formerly known as BHP House) became the city's first building to exceed the height of 150 metres and was the tallest in Melbourne for a few years. It was constructed in steel and concrete and features an imposing dark glass facade. Designed by the architectural practice Yuncken Freeman alongside engineers Irwin Johnson and Partners, it was heavily influenced by contemporary skyscrapers in Chicago. The local architects sought technical advice from Fazlur Khan of renowned American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), spending 10 weeks at their Chicago office in 1968. The design ingenuity of 140 William Street was recognised as the building became one of the few heritage registered skyscrapers in Melbourne. The Optus Centre, which surpassed 140 William Street's height marginally, was completed in 1975. In 1977 Nauru House claimed the feat of the tallest building in Melbourne at a height of 1978, the first of the Collins Place towers was opened, at a height of 185 metres. The design of Collins Place was based around a pair of towers at 45 degree angles to the Hoddle Grid, with the triangular spaces between forming an open plaza to the street and a shopping plaza behind the towers. All open spaces are covered by a space frame, with transparent plastic roofing. The whole complex is clad in tan-coloured precast masonry panels. In 1986, the Rialto Towers surpassed Sydney's 25 Martin Place, MLC Centre as the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, with a height of 251 metres. At the time of its opening it was the List of tallest buildings in the world#Tallest buildings in the world, 23rd–tallest building in the world. In the 1990s, another 9 buildings were constructed in Melbourne that exceeded 150 metres; 5 of these surpassed heights of 200 metres. 101 Collins Street, which is , became the tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere in 1991; it was surpassed in height as a result of the completion of the nearby 120 Collins Street that same year. The skyscraper, which stands at 265 metres in height, held the titles for tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere for fourteen years, until the completion of the Gold Coast, Queensland, Gold Coast's Q1 (building), Q1 in 2005. Between 1996 and 97, a less admired Melbourne building became a target of demolition: the streamlined modernist Gas and Fuel Buildings. These structures were built in the late 1960s at a time when modernisation of the city was considered favourable. The two towers, designed by Perrot and Parents, were also known as the Princes Gate Towers. As public opinion swayed back towards the desirability of 19th century heritage, the modernist Gas and Fuel Towers grew to be seen as "ugly and featureless", with no connection to the heritage that surrounded. The Jeff Kennett, Kennett Government's decision to demolish the modernist towers was generally met with approval, and the towers were demolished to make way for Federation Square. A similar fate was met by Hotel Australia, built in a Functionalist/Moderne style in 1939 and demolished in 1989. In 2008, one of the last remaining Victorian arcades in the Melbourne CBD was demolished under approval from the planning minister at the time Matthew Guy. The decision and the rapidity of the demolition created public outrage. The building, Eastern Arcade and Apollo Hall, built in 1872, was constructed on the site of the old Haymarket Theatre. It was the third arcade to be built in Melbourne and larger than both Queen's Arcade and the Royal Arcade, Melbourne, Royal Arcade. The Eastern Arcade was designed by George Johnston and had 68 stores as well as an upper storey. Despite discussions held by the Melbourne City Council to preserve the building or at least its facade, the entire structure was torn down in 2008. File:35 and 55 from Collins Street.JPG, Collins Place File:120CollinsSt.jpg, 120 Collins Street File:530 Collins Street.jpg, 530 Collins Street File:Rialto Towers.jpg, Rialto Towers


New millennium architecture

The new millennium saw a tighter attitude towards heritage conservation and a construction boom in Melbourne. On the back of Australia's financial and mining booms between 1969 and 1970, and the establishment of the headquarters of many major companies in the city, resulted in a continual rise in large, modern office buildings being constructed outside of the historic CBD and in newer precincts like Southbank and Docklands to preserve heritage overlays within the city centre. The 2000s saw a continuation of skyscrapers and tall buildings with the urban renewal opening of the Melbourne Docklands in 2000 and the construction of
Eureka Tower Eureka Tower is a skyscraper located in the Southbank precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the exterior was completed on 1 June 2006. The plaza was finished in June 2006 and the building was officia ...
, an apartment building which is currently Melbourne's second–tallest skyscraper and the List of tallest buildings in the world, 77th tallest in the world at 92 floors and 297 metres. The glass style building was constructed by Fender Katsalidis Architects. File:Eureka Tower at night.jpg,
Eureka Tower Eureka Tower is a skyscraper located in the Southbank precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the exterior was completed on 1 June 2006. The plaza was finished in June 2006 and the building was officia ...
, Melbourne's second tallest building File:Australia 108 Southbank Melbourne.jpg, Australia 108 at Southbank File:YVE Apartment in St. Kilda Rd.jpg, Apartments in St Kilda


Monuments and structures

Melbourne's metropolitan area is dotted with structures and memorials dedicated to various different historical events of significance. Perhaps the most notable, located in Kings Domain, is the Shrine of Remembrance, an art deco monument originally built to honour the men and women who served in the First World War, but now seen as a symbol for all Australians involved in war. Designed by architects and World War I veterans Hudson and Wardrop, Phillip Hudson and James Wardrop, the Shrine is built in a classicism, classical style and is based on the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus and the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The defining element located at the top of the memorial's ziggurat roof is based on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. Constructed using Tynong, Victoria, Tynong granite, the building once consisted only of the main sanctuary which was surrounded by the ambulatory. The sanctuary contains the marble Stone of Remembrance, which features an inscription stating "Greater love hath no man". Beneath the sanctuary lies a crypt, which contains a bronze statue of a soldier father and son representing two generations, as well as panels listing every unit of the First Australian Imperial Force, Australian Imperial Force. Federation Square, built on a concrete deck above railway lines, covering an area of , is a mixed-used development built in the early 2000s. The buildings in the square were designed in a deconstructivist style with modern minimalist shapes. The complex of buildings forms a rough U-shape around the main open-air square, oriented to the west. The eastern end of the square is formed by the glazed walls of The Atrium. While bluestone is used for the majority of the paving in the Atrium and St. Paul's Court, matching footpaths elsewhere in central Melbourne, the main square is paved in 470,000 ochre-coloured sandstone blocks from Western Australia and invokes images of the Outback. The paving is designed as a huge urban artwork, called ''Nearamnew'', by Paul Carter (academic), Paul Carter and gently rises above street level, containing a number of textual pieces inlaid in its undulating surface. The square also contains a large television screen, which has broadcast a number of national addresses, including a 2007 speech from then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, making an apology to the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australians. The square houses the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Special Broadcasting Service, SBS Headquarters. Several other famous structures and monuments outside the CBD, many of them located in beachside suburbs like St Kilda, Victoria, St Kilda, were demolished or destroyed by fire. The dance hall Palais de Dance (1913) in St Kilda, built by Americans Leon and Herman Phillips, was destroyed by fire in 1968, Princes Court (late 1800s), featuring toboggan and a water chute, was closed in 1909, the St Kilda Sea Baths, featuring two large bathing houses, was built in 1860 and closed in 1993. The famous Spencer Street Power Station in the city centre, featuring a large 370-feet chimney (built in 1952), and widely considered an "eyesore", was demolished between 2008 and 2009.


Town halls and civic centres

Each municipality in Melbourne is represented by its own town hall. The City of Melbourne's central municipal building is located on the northeast corner of Swanston Street, Swanston and Collins Street, Melbourne, Collins Streets–it is the oldest town hall in Melbourne's metropolitan area, constructed in 1887 in Second Empire style, by the iconic local architect Joseph Reed (architect), Joseph Reed and Barnes. The building is topped by Prince Alfred's Tower, named after the Duke. The tower includes a 2.44 m diameter clock, which was started on 31 August 1874, after being presented to the council by the Mayor's son, Vallange Condell. It was built by Smith and Sons of London. The longest of its copper hands measures 1.19 m long, and weighs 8.85 kg. The Main Auditorium includes a magnificent concert organ, now comprising 147 ranks and 9,568 pipes. The organ was originally built by Hill, Norman & Beard (of England) in 1929 and was recently rebuilt and enlarged by Schantz Organ Company of the United States. South Melbourne Town Hall, which represented the now amalgamated areas of South Melbourne, Port Melbourne and St Kilda, Victoria, St Kilda, is one of the second oldest town hall's and civic centres built in Melbourne, completed in 1879 in an elaborate Victorian Academic Classical style with Second Empire architecture in Europe, French Second Empire features, dominated by a very tall multi-stage clock tower. The building is on the
Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...
.


Arcades and laneways

The many laneways and arcades of Melbourne have become internationally famous. Not only to they boast national cultural significance in Australia, but they have come to collectively represent Melbourne. The abundance of lanes in the Melbourne city centre reflects the town planning of Melbourne–the Hoddle Grid, they originated as service laneways for horses and carts. In some parts of the city, notably the Little Lon district, Little Lonsdale area, they were associated with the city's Victorian Gold Rush, gold-rush era slums. Notable laneways include Centre Place, Melbourne, Centre Place and Degraves Street, Melbourne, Degraves Lane. Melbourne's numerous shopping arcades reached a peak of popularity in the late-Victorian era and in the interwar years. These notably include Block Place and Royal Arcade. Some notable demolished arcades include Coles Book arcade and Queens Walk arcade. Cathedral Arcade, in the Nicholas Building (1927), was built in the
art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style and reflects Melbourne's 1920s architecture with glass domes, leadlight, arches, and shopfronts with detailed wood paneling. Since the 1990s Melbourne's lanes, particularly the pedestrianised ones, have gentrification, gentrified. Officialdom has recognised their cultural heritage, heritage value, and they attract interest from Australia and around the world. Some of the lanes have become particularly notable for their acclaimed urban art.


Bridges

Melbourne's positioning spanning the Yarra River, and on the coast, necessitates several water crossings. Bolte Bridge, Australia's longest bridge, is a large twin cantilever bridge that spans the Yarra, and Victoria Harbour in the Melbourne Docklands, Docklands, to the west of the Melbourne central business district. Bolte Bridge was designed by architects Denton Corker Marshall from 1996 to 1999 at a cost of $75 million. The bridge features two 140 metre high silver (grey concrete) towers, situated on either side of the roadway at the midpoint of the bridge's span. These two towers are an aesthetic addition by the architects, and are not joined to the main body of the bridge. Several other pedestrian bridges that cross the Yarra River, connecting Southbank, Victoria, Southbank to the Melbourne city centre were built between the 19th-century and the 1990s. The most notable early multi-purpose crossing of the Yarra is the Princes Bridge, constructed in 1888. A more recent example of a bridge crossing over the Yarra is the Evan Walker Bridge, completed in 1992. The wrought-iron arch Queens Bridge (Melbourne), Queens Bridge, one of the oldest remaining bridges in the city, was constructed in 1889 has five wrought iron plate girder spans, and is listed on the
Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...
. The bridge was built by contractor David Munro (engineer), David Munro, and replaced a timber footbridge built in 1860. The Morell Bridge, built in 1899, is notable as the first bridge in Victoria that was built using reinforced concrete. The bridge features elaborate decorations on the three arch spans, including prominent dragon motifs as well as ornamental Victorian lights. The gutters on the bridge are cobbled bluestone, with a single lane bitumen strip running down the middle. The Bridge is listed on the
Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...
. File:Church street bridge melbourne.jpg, Church Street Bridge File:Princes_Bridge,_Melbourne.jpg, Princes Bridge File:Hawthorngenview.jpg, Hawthorn Bridge


Residential architecture

Like many other Australian capital cities, Melbourne's suburbs and residential architecture has been shaped by the city's extensive history–thus it is defined by a variation in style, ranging from elaborate Victorian properties to more contemporary postwar homes. To counter the trend towards low-density suburban residential growth, the government began a series of controversial public housing projects in the inner city by the Housing Commission of Victoria, which resulted in demolition of many neighbourhoods and a proliferation of high-rise towers. Upper class suburbs like Toorak, Victoria, Toorak flourished during Melbourne's gold rush era and feature remnants of the prosperous past, as does South Yarra, Malvern, Victoria, Malvern and various other eastern suburbs. These areas have Tudor architecture, Tudor, Tudorbethan, Georgian architecture, Georgian and Victorian architecture in abundance, among many other styles. More middle class areas like Camberwell, Victoria, Camberwell and Caulfield, Victoria, Caulfield are characterised by Bungalows. American architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan have also had influence on the residential style of Melbourne.


Gallery

File:StateLibraryofVictoria, Oct 2005.jpg,
State Library of Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...
File:Bank place melbourne 1.jpg, Bank Place, Melbourne, Bank Place File:Safe deposit building, Melbourne.jpg, Safe Deposit Building File:Alstons corner and the block collins street melbourne.jpg, Alstons Building File:Gothic Revival building on Collins and Queen Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.jpg, Gothic Revival ANZ Bank building on Collins Street and Queen Street File:St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, AU.jpg, St Paul's Cathedral File:Trinity college university of melbourne.jpg, Trinity College (University of Melbourne), Trinity College File:Vicparl2007.jpg, Parliament House Melbourne File:The Block Arcade facade, Melbourne.jpg, Ornate detail of the Block Arcade (1892) File:Scots Church Collins Street Melbourne.jpg, Scots' Church, Melbourne, Scots Church File:A.C. Goode House@0.5x.jpg, A.C. Goode House (1891) File:Melbourne Collins Street Architecture.jpg, Gothic and Victorian buildings on Collins Street File:The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne, Australia.jpg, Windsor Hotel (Melbourne), Windsor Hotel File:Stalbridge chambers little collins street.jpg, Stalbridge Chambers (1889), one of only two remaining historic Melbourne skyscrapers


See also

* Architecture of Australia * List of heritage listed buildings in Melbourne * List of tallest buildings in Melbourne *
Victorian architecture Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian w ...


References


Literary references

* * * * * * * * {{Melbourne Skyscrapers Architecture of Melbourne, Arts in Melbourne