Melbourne Architectural Walk
1885 - 5-7 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
These premises comprise a terrace of two house facades constructed in 1884 for merchant George Rolfe. The three storeyed building features an arcade to all floors. The design's feature is its tilted segmented arches. The ground floor arcade is supported on square piers while the first floor level rests on paired columns and single columns are used for the top floor. The parapet is particularly high, elaborately decorated and is crowned by a pierced balustrade, pedimented arched bays and urns. The terrace has a basement and parts of the cast iron palisades, gates and railings at ground floor level remain.
1922-26 - Victor Horsley Chambers, 12 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
Constructed for Victor Horsley of Horsley and Evans Costume Manufacturers for leasing as professional chambers. The five storey building is constructed in concrete and brick with a stone facing. The ground floor facade is faced with smooth banded rustication and relates directly to the nearby Treasury building. The first floor level has symmetrically arranged windows with a pedimented triple window in the centre. Behind the ornamented facade is the lobby and lift with metal cage lift shaft with concrete wrap-around stair. Architect: W A M Blackett of Blackett and Forster architects.
1972-77, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
When this 49 storey (52 levels) building was completed in the 1970s, it became the tallest building in Melbourne. It is octagonal, similar in appearance to Sydney's MLC Centre of Sydney, with large vertical concrete columns. A faceted octagonal building, originally of concrete form, but the facade was recently remodelled after concrete degradation and disintegration. Height: 190 metres.
1954-56 - Gilbert Court, 100 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
Built in the early period in the Internationalist style, this free standing steel and glass structure was Melbourne's first curtain walled building. Architect: J. L. A. La Gerche.
1866-67 - St Michael's Uniting Church, 122-136 Collins Street, Melbnourne, Vic
An exuberant and outstanding example of Lombardic Romanesque style and one of prominent Victorian architect Joseph Reed's finest buildings. It is a particularly early example of the use of polychromatic brickwork in Victoria, and unusual use of the style. Other polychromatic churches in Victoria are Gothic in style. The chapel was built in 1966 to mark the centenary of the building. The interior was altered in 1978 when some of the original seats were removed.
1928 - 1929, former T&G Building, 97 Russell Street (Cnr Collins Street), Melbourne, Vic
The T&G insurance company's buildings erected in most capital cities in the 1920s were of similar design. Melbourne's 12 storey T&G building is one of the only of its kind remaining in Australia. It features a step back tower adorned by a pyramid atop a massive Chicagoesque base. A further stage, that extended it along Russell Street to the corner of Flinders Lane was completed in the same Renaissance palazzo style in the 1960s. The complete building exterior was restored and conserved in the 1990s despite a lack of official heritage status. Architects: A & K Henderson.
1986 - Grand Hyatt Hotel, 123 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
A stunning 35-storey golden curtain walled building in an L-shaped curve. Faceted vertical bays of glass break up the main exposed concrete mass into a sheath of gold. Height: 104 metres. Architects: Peddle Thorp and Walker.
1912-13 - The Auditorium, 167-173 Collins Street, Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Vic
Built as a theatre, the elaborately decorated Auditorium building is a 10 storey structure that is architecturally significant as a precursor of the form of city buildings after 1913. It marks a shift from the influence of Art Nouveau to a new form of classicism, described at the time as being the modern French Renaissance style but more probably inspired by the decorated high rise architecture of Louis Sullivan in Chicago. Architect: Nahum Barnet.
1898-99 - 180-188 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
This 8 storey building was erected for Ball & Welch Department Stores as their main Melbourne city store. Two additional floors were added in the 1980s. The building was designed by H.W & F.B Tompkins.
1934-35 Kodak House, 252 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
Kodak House and its neighbour, Lyric House (250 Collins Street) show the tall thin proportions of many interwar buildings on Collins Street. Lyric House won the 1931 RVIA Street architecture Medal the year it was completed, and was designed by A & K Henderson for Wertheim, Melbourne s premier piano retailer, and was described as an architectural representation of the Spirit of Music . This is expressed by the string-like narrow fenestration, but more particularly by the figures on the entry arch, depicted playing the flute, lute and cymbals, Kodak House, completed only four years later in 1935, shows the fundamental shift to modern forms; designed by architects Oakley & Parkes, the facade is dominated by the vertical ribbing of the central curtain-wall section, executed in shiny chromed metal. It was the Melbourne's first commercial building to use polished stainless steel in its facade.
Block Arcade, 280-286 Collins Street and 96-102 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, Vic
During the Victorian era (latter half of the 19th century), undercover shopping arcades between the main shopping streets came into vogue in Australia's larger cities. Most, like Melbourne's Block Arcade, were built in the Classical architectural style and were lavishly decorated internally with vaulted ceilings, arches and pillars.
1990 - 333 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
A highly success attempt to bloend old and new, 333 Collins Street is a late example of American Postmodern Classicism in Melbourne, its tiered profile and copper dome recalling the 1920s Skyscrapers of New York. At ground level, large bracket light fittings and marble floors continue the tradition that such buildings were to be regarded as temples of commerce. Beyond the abstracted tripartite facade is to be found Lloyd Tayler and Alfred Dunn s fully restored Baroque Revival dome of the Commercial Bank of Australia (1891).
The crossed rib dome, inspired by Italian Baroque and Moorish precedents, is considered one of the great Victorian era interiors of Melbourne, and was narrowly saved from demolition in the 1970s following public opposition led by the National Trust. It was built for the Commercial Bank of Australia, and completed just as the 1880s financial boom collapsed the bank had to close its ornate cast iron gates in April 1893 for a time to keep out desperate depositors at the height of the crisis. The original facade of the building was refaced in 1939, in turn replaced by the current podium level stone facade, the central section of which is a simplified version of the 1893 original. Architcts: Nelson Architects International and Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan Pty Ltd.
1975 - 350 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic.
A building in the typical Internationalist style, concrete, steel and glass with a bare side wall emphasis and a grid pattern to the windows of the street facade. Note how it dwarfs the high rise building of 40 years earlier to its right.
1888-91 - ANZ Banking Museum (former Stock Exchange of Melbourne), 382 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic.
The former Stock Exchange of Melbourne building was erected in 1888-91. The architect of the original six storey building was William Pitt, the contractor was H. Lockington. It was one of Melbourne's two Exchanges and served that purpose until 1912, when it was purchased by the E.S. & A. (English, Scottish and Australian) Bank. The bank undertook extensive renovations in 1923 when the main entrance area and upper floors were completely reconstructed.
This building is entirely executed in stone and is one of the masterpieces of the Gothic Revival in Victoria. The remaining facade is faced in finely decorated freestone. The ground floor arcade, with griffins and the original door surround, is a distinctive feature.
1929-31 - former AMP Building, 419-429 Collins Street and 64-74 Market Street, Melbourne, Vic
The former AMP office building was designed by Bates, Smart and McCutcheon. It is a ten storey, steel-framed building, with walls variously constructed of brick, reinforced concrete or terra cotta partition blocks. The brick walls of the Collins and Market Street frontages are clad with pink casterton granite at the base and Sydney freestone above. A group of symbolic statues, executed in Sydney Freestone by Orlando Dutton, ornaments the main entrance on Collins Street. The building's Renaissance revival style is rather conservative, as was much commercial building in Melbourne at the time. Nevertheless, beneath its conservative facade the building featured two remarkable innovations - a concealed panel heating system, the first of its kind in Australia, and adjustable steel slatted sun-blinds on the Collins Street and Market Street upper floor windows. The building was awarded the fourth Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Street Architecture Medal in 1932. Architect: Sir Walter Osborn McCutcheon (1899-1981).
1960-65 - National Mutual House, 447 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
This 24 storey office block built in the Internationalist style is a typical example of the office towers erected in the 1960s in Australia's capital cities in this style that were almost featureless, boxy, bland and bulky. This building had vast wrap-around balconies clad in a marble finish. A 3 level podium faces onto Flinders Lane, with an entrance to one of Melbournes earliest underground carparks.
1891 - Winfield Building, 487-495 Collins Stret, Melbourne, Vic
The former Wool Exchange building is believed to have been built for J R Murphy, owner of Murphy's brewery. Part of the financing for the building came from the architect and his father, Richard Speight Snr, a commissioner of the Victorian Railways. The front section to Collins Street is all that remains of the original, much larger complex. The four storey building with a facade to Collins Street was built as two ground level shops with offices overhead. It is constructed of brick on a bluestone plinth and cement render mouldings. The corner treatment echoes the adjacent Rialto building, being splayed and crowned by a conical turret. A Queen Anne style steep pediment, reminiscent of Flemish gables and penetrated by windows, is at roof level. The dormer windows and decorative iron ridgework add further interest to the variegated and picturesque roofline. Architects: Charles D'Ebro and Richard Speight jnr.
1889-90 - Rialto Building, 495 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
A five storey office building that has been a landmark in Melbourne's west end for many years. A prominent spire marks the corner laneway, an elegantly picturesque composition of intricate venetian Gothic. Complete with spires, lace ironwork and individual treatment at each level. Notable is the aesthetic balance of horizontal and vertical emphasis, giving the building a well proportioned look and human scale. Landmark corner towers. Architect: William Pitt
1907-09 - 524-534 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic
Built in the Edwardian period in the Chicagoesque style, this building was originally named the Aberdeen Building and was built to house offices. It features a faceted and bulky facade with prominent corner oriel. Building design by Nahum Barnet.
1986 - Rialto Towers, 525 Collins Street, Melbourne, Vic.
At 270 metres, Rialto Towers is the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the Southern Hemisphere and is well known for its unique design and glass facade. The building is accessible from both Collins Street and Flinders Lane. Rialto is a linked, two tower development comprising 55 floors in the South Tower and 40 in the North Tower (approximately one million square feet of lettable space), five levels of underground car parking (612 bays), an observation deck and rooftop communication centre.
The building was officially opened in October 1986 and has retained an equally appealing status with more-recently completed landmark buildings. With the opening of an Observation Deck in 1994, the Rialto became the 18th member of the World Federation of Great Towers. Located on the 55th floor, the Deck offers spectacular 360-degree views of Melbourne and surrounding areas. From the indoor viewing area as well as the two enclosed outdoor observation points, visitors are treated to a stunning view of Melbourne's highlights such as the M.C.G., Shrine of Remembrance, Port Phillip Bay and the Dandenong Ranges. Architects: Gerard de Preu and Partner and Perrot, Lyon, Mathieson.
