Uploads from Gruntfuttock, tagged melbourne

Royal Exhibition Building

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:11:33 -0700

This is Australia’s first World Heritage listed building, added in 2004 because it is one of the most important survivors of the great exhibitions of the 19th century. Built for an International Exhibition in 1880, the main hall, with a dome reminiscent of Florence Cathedral, is the oldest such hall, and the only one built for industrial goods remaining in the world. Designed by Joseph Reed and Partner Barnes, the Hall and the gardens are all that remain of a vast complex of permanent and temporary annexes that once extended far to the north.
A second, much larger Centennial Exhibition was held in 1888, and the first Australian Federal Parliament was inaugurated here with much ceremony in 1901. Since then the buildings have managed to maintain a central role in Melbourne life, surviving calls to demolish it as a ‘white elephant’.
The western annexe housed State Parliament from 1901-1927 (while federal Parliament occupied Parliament House), and later the Motor Registration Board.
The Eastern Annexe housed a ballroom, a war museum, and an aquarium, while the space between the annexes was occupied by a velodrome and sports oval, used for St Patrick’s day fairs, then a WWII Army Barracks, later re-used as a migrant camp.
The main building hosted ‘monster’ balls, concerts, and fetes up to WWI, was used as a hospital during the 1919 influenza epidemic, and after WWII was home to ever popular Home, Car and Boat Shows (and High School exams).
It is now part of the Museum of Victoria. Unattractive extensions of the 1950s/60s that had replaced the earlier annexes were demolished in 1999, and the spectacular interior repainted in the ornate 1901 colour scheme.
It continues to host trade, art and flower shows, conferences and parties.
The gardens, flanking the building to the north and south, with their grand tree-lined leading, were designed to complement it, and include notable elements such as the fabulous Hochgurtel Fountain at the south entrance, and the French Fountain and Westgarth Drinking Fountain at the east.

Royal Exhibition Building

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:11:33 -0700

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London Stores building

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:59:50 -0800

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Corner of Bourke & Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 17:26:42 -0800

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T&G Building

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 17:27:15 -0800

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Temperance & General (T&G) Building
143 Collins Street, corner of Russell Street

Located on the crest of the Collins Street hill, this landmark was built by the Temperance and General Life Assurance Society. Designed by A & K Henderson, it was built in stages (1929, 1938 and 1959), developing into the largest and most prominent interwar office block in Melbourne – popular with dentists, the T&G Building was fondly known as the ‘Tooth & Gum’ building. The Commercial Palazzo form topped by a stepped tower was repeated in Sydney, and in smaller versions in other capitals, country towns and New Zealand, in a unique form of corporate branding. The building was controversially ‘facaded’ and new offices built behind in 1990, to a design by architects Metier III. The insurance Hall was demolished and then reconstructed, but the entry mural painted by Napier Waller in 1928 was retained intact, and the new atrium is a notable space, incorporating sculptural blocks with images of Melbourne landmarks.

King George V Monument

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:55:16 -0700

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Kings Domain, Melbourne

Kings Domain

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:55:13 -0700

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Kings Domain

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:55:15 -0700

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King Edward VII Monument

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:55:13 -0700

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Kings Domain, Melbourne

Queen Victoria Monument

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:55:14 -0700

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Victoria was crowned Queen on 28 June 1838, when she was just 18 years of age. Lord Melbourne served as her first prime minister, educating her in politics and government. During her reign the British Empire reached its apogee, with vast colonies abroad and great industrial expansion and reforms at home. Notably, it was Victoria that changed the role of the monarchy to a symbolic one, the business of government being left to parliament.

News of the Queen's death in 1901 saw a wave of public mourning through Australia. In Melbourne, a proposal for a memorial was raised with some urgency; Melbourne was thought to have been the only large city in the Empire without a statue honouring the monarch. It was apparently not enough that the state was named after her and the city after her first prime minister. More than £7000 was raised for the memorial through public subscription, and James White was to undertake the commission. There was controversy over the conduct of the committee in selecting White and over his insistence that the marble be sculpted in Italy, rather than in Australia. But on Empire Day 1907 the memorial was unveiled on a raised mound near Linlithgow Avenue in the Queen Victoria Gardens. The lieutenant governor of Victoria, John Madden, unveiled it.

Russell Street Police Headquarters

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:27:49 -0800

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Russell Street Police Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia was for many years the headquarters of the Victoria Police before they were moved to William Street in about 1990. The main multi-storey brick building located on the west of the site was constructed 1940-1943 in the Art Deco style by architect Percy Edgar Everett and is reminiscent of the design of the Empire State Building. The complex also included buildings along Mackenzie Street constructed in the 1880s and modified in the 1920s, as well as a 1970s brown brick building on the east of the site, which has since been demolished.

It was used in the opening titles of the television series Homicide, a fictional police drama series dealing with the homicide squad of the Victoria police force.

The complex is located on the north-eastern corner of Russell and La Trobe streets, and extends along Russell Street to the intersection of Mackenzie Street, Melbourne. Across the road on Russell Street is the Old Melbourne Gaol, old City Police Station and City Courts buildings (both now occupied by the RMIT University). The Police Headquarters was the site of the Russell Street Bombing in 1986.

Following vacation of the buildings by the Victoria Police, the site was involved in several failed redevelopment proposals including conversion to student accommodation and to a hotel. In 2005, the eastern wing of the complex, a 1970s building and part of the 1940s southern wing including a theaterette, were demolished to make way for a new apartment building, and the remainder of the complex was being converted into apartments. The apartment complex is now known as "Concept Blue".

17 Casselden Place

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:27:13 -0800

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The house is the last of a terrace of six two-roomed cottages built in 1877 by John Casselden, a shoe-maker and small-time developer. The cottage is the last remaining in the area known as "Little Lon", long associated with slums, light industry and the city's vice trade and accurately describes the other side of "Marvellous Melbourne".

Elizabeth Street

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 03:27:57 -0700

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Melbourne from Church Street Bridge

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:07:53 -0700

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Balcombe Place

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:09:01 -0700

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W Class Tram

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 21 May 2011 21:16:29 -0700

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Church Street, Richmond

Melbourne Town Hall

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sat, 21 May 2011 21:08:35 -0700

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Swanston Street, Melbourne

Croft Alley

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:22:31 -0700

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Union Lane

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:23:09 -0700

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Bank Place

nobody@flickr.com (Gruntfuttock) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:44:26 -0700

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