An Annotated Guide
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These are sites that describe or discuss a single building or project. I have selected sites that deal with landmarks and other well-known buildings - the ones you are most likely to see on postcards or in the news. Some of the resources in Collections will lead you to information on small-scale and lesser-known structures.- Block Arcade
- Melbourne has many lovely old shopping arcades, and the Block is the jewel, with glass domes and mosaic floors. Seeing it today still transports the viewer back a century, when promenading along Collins Street - "doing the Block" - was how to see and be seen. This little webpage mentions both the history and current appeal of the Block Arcade. While it does not have as full an architectural history as I would like, this broad coverage made it the best web resource on this charming city landmark.
- Building 8, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
- Aardvark's (which I will discuss in detail in collecitons) entry for RMIT's Lego-like Building 8 handily shows us a dozen images, plans, and elevations of this "building that thinks it's a city." It also tells us how the building fits into the university and to the city, how it aesthetically refers to past and present, and that it stands for Melburnian architecture. Despite the technical drawings, there is no narrative of the construction process, which in this particular instance may be of interest to even the casual reader, because the building is so large and so tightly integrated into its physical context. This is a short piece, but it still tells me everything I want to know about the impression a new building makes on its environment and its users.
- City Link
- An essay on the L'Erma site, one of my favorite resources for Melbourne architecture. A detailed discussion of L'Erma is in the following entry on Federation Square.
- This essay on Denton Corker Marshall's massive city gateway, sprawling over the Tullamarine Freeway from the airport into the city, gets at the fundamental quesiton of what an architectural project is supposed to do and, once deciding that, what the subsequent design considerations should be. For example, the author wonders how to define a city gateway and then points out that a project along a freeway needs to be comprehensible at freeway speed (viewers moving at 110 km/hour can't look for long). This piece is interesting for a variety of reasons - construction photos, ground-level exploration of the site, musings about future use - and, as I will mention in the next annotation, the author is clearly personally and civically invested in understanding the project.
- Denton Corker Marshall's site has pictures of the completed project.
- This essay on Denton Corker Marshall's massive city gateway, sprawling over the Tullamarine Freeway from the airport into the city, gets at the fundamental quesiton of what an architectural project is supposed to do and, once deciding that, what the subsequent design considerations should be. For example, the author wonders how to define a city gateway and then points out that a project along a freeway needs to be comprehensible at freeway speed (viewers moving at 110 km/hour can't look for long). This piece is interesting for a variety of reasons - construction photos, ground-level exploration of the site, musings about future use - and, as I will mention in the next annotation, the author is clearly personally and civically invested in understanding the project.
- Federation Square
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- This article is an exmaple of the work on L'Erma dB Design's Melbourne Project Index. With only ten entries, I didn't feel this quite qualified as a collection of architecture. Rather, it is a careful focus on important contemporary projects. The article on Federation Square is a representative example.
- The entangled and beleaguered Federation Square project embodies Melbourne as Australia's cultural capital. Announced in 1997, this complex of visitors center, cinemedia center, museum of Australian art, and civic plaza was far from complete when I visited Melbourne in August 2001. Key structural features have been debated and deleted, and labor and financial problems repeatedly threatened its completion. The author presents these developments chronologically, along with interpretation of their impact (not just to the structure, but to the city and to Australian architecture).
- This essay perfectly conveys a real sense of being at the place described - owed completely to the author's sense of heart and humor. This writer clearly loves engaging with architecture and with his city, and he manages to do so in a personal, informal, evocative way. Simple touches add to the effect: for example, the author has taken care to date the photographs, allowing the viewer to trace development and chronology of projects. Feeling, thoughtfulness, and connectedness make L'Erma dB Design one of my three favorite sites on Melbourne architecture.
- See also the project's official website for dozens of beautiful images and an interactive map with textual descriptions and photos.
- This article is an exmaple of the work on L'Erma dB Design's Melbourne Project Index. With only ten entries, I didn't feel this quite qualified as a collection of architecture. Rather, it is a careful focus on important contemporary projects. The article on Federation Square is a representative example.
- Flinders Street Station
- The National Trust of Australia points out that Flinders Street Station is not only well known but also heavily used, making it a major part of Melbourne daily life. The building's significance is respectfully treated here, with thorough description and discussion of its history and role in the city. The author has woven together architectural description (look out for terminology like "rusticated" and "dado"), planning and design history (some components of the original plan have never been built), glimpses into private and extinct spaces (dining room, concert hall, gymnasium), and highlights of special features (its characteristic red brick contrasted with yellow cement, the original "do not spit" signs, the clocks at the main entrance). In addition to giving Flinders Street Station its due and justifying its national heritage status, this piece is an excellent model of how to write a respectful building-biography.
- Grollo Tower
- Materials published in Melbourne's premiere daily paper The Age on the proposed, and now scrapped, world's tallest building. At 560 meters, it was to be 100 meters taller than the Sears Tower (Chicago) and the Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur). The Age has covered the planning of and debates over the Grollo Tower for several years. The site offers images, editorials, articles, and reader contributions and is great for local, contemporary opinion of the project - the opinions of those who would have been most affected by its construction. Particularly intersting is the contrast of ground-level workings of the construction group and city departments with the personally-felt debate over whether the project was appropriate, viable, or simply irreversibly monstrous.
- Architecture that doesn't get built can be just as interesting as the projects we see completed.
- For a more subjective opinion, see the architects' vision of the project.
- Architecture that doesn't get built can be just as interesting as the projects we see completed.
- Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne
- Architecture Australia review by RMIT Dean Leon van Schaik in of Nonda Katsalidis's renovations and addition to this small but impressive campus gallery (September/October 1998). An important journal, an important thinker, and an important architect, but an incomprehensible article. I spent three hours in the Potter one morning, and I have no idea what van Schaik is talking about.
- To elaborate: Ideas mentioned include the architect's other works, the project requirements and rationale, forms and materials, other comparable buildings, and the Potter's role in the arts and intellectual communities of the Melbourne. In other words, all the components of a complete, useful review are present, but unfortunately the author spends a lot of energy alluding to other buildings and dropping names instead of stating clearly why he likes the building and why he thinks it is important.
- Immigration Museum
- While the biography of Flinders Street Station discussed above traces the building through its history, here we read about two lives: the Customs House (1873) has been turned into a museum chronicling the lives of the city's residents who once viewed this structure from the adjacent river port. The RAIA, the nation's professional organization, cited this project for its successful - and respectful - incorporation of the new function into the old structure, and this essay (Architecture Australia November/December 1999) explains why. The essay manages to be simultaneously concise, evocative, and laudatory, describing the methods used by the project team to incorporate the museum's mission, visitor needs, the existing structure, and even the story of Melbourne into a successful project. The piece itself, as it says of the building, is "delightful and fuctional."
- Melbourne Central
- Melbourne Central, completed in 1991, combines a high-rise office tower
with shopping (notably a branch of the Japanese department store Daimaru) and entertainment spaces. The complex envelops the city's 1870 shot tower by building over it a massive glass cone, as seen in the top and bottom pictures on this website. Here the architect explains his vision of the project, an interesting read because of the many uses and structural forms within the complex. It is not entirely clear who the intended audience of this site is: the language employs too much architectural terminology to be for the average reader, but the text is too short to be of much use to architecture professionals or researchers. However, the author touches upon the major visual components of the project - he provides his rationale for and interpretation of the features which make this complex so interesting in the first place. This site will be more relevant for the reader who has seen the building in person, wandering around it inside and out. Compare the building to the fascinating artwork that you keep returning to visit in the gallery - then think of this site as the label.
- I am still not fond of Melbourne Central, but after reading this site, at least I feel I understand it.
- Melbourne Exhibition Center
- In its formula, this review of Denton Corker Marshall's Melbourne Exhibition Center (Architecture Australia September/October 1996) is very similar to van Schaik's piece on the Potter Museum: similar points of discussion, similar references to other archtiects, the same publication. Here, however, Norman Day streamlines his allusions to one extended reference to a single thought by Le Corbusier, coming back to this idea throughout the essay as a lens through which to see DCM's new building. Instead of Le Corbusier's "machine for living" we have here "an implement for exhibiting in." Day believes that Le Corbusier's dream of purposeful, functional, beautiful architecture has been achieved in the MEC. By sticking to one useful and thorough allusion, Day can bring in the intellectually interesting architectural and historical terms without overwhelming his reader. By reading this essay, we understand what Le Corbusier thought, what DCM has done, and why Day finds this projet a commendable combination of the two.
- Melbourne Museum
- The Age has compiled materials on several Melbourne architectural projects, including the Grollo Tower (described above), Federation Square, and the new Melbourne Museum. These projects, all huge in scale and budget, have generated all sorts of coverage in the paper, as well as editorials and letters from readers. This collection on the Museum (opened in October 2000) touches on the range of issues and opinions of this large-scale public cultural project. Of these three buildings, I include the museum collection in my essential reading list because the project has been completed, unlike the scrapped Grollo Tower and the in-progress Federation Square, and readers have the opportunity to consider all the coverage against their own experience of the building.
This collection contains text, audio, and film files. Highlights include aerial construction photos, coverage of the opening day, a timeline detailing the winding and bumpy path to the new building, and Norman Day's assessment of the building's ability to support and communicate the themes and purposes of the museum.
- See also Paul Walker's review in Architecture Australia (January/February 2001). Another good introduction to the new museum, as well as to the idea of "urban dialogue" as it has been playing out in Melbourne in recent years. Also a representative example of the writing in Architecture Australia - description without much jargon, and usually an opinion peeking through.
- Parliament House
- An impressive in-house site chronicling the bumpy 70-year building history of Victoria's state legislature. Many terms are linked to a glossary, and building elements and sections are linked to illustrations. There are simple histories and architectural descriptions of readily recognizable parts of the structure - this site is straightforward and very easy to use. For a high-tech trip around the building, try the virtual tour. Click on the interactive floor plan for an image and textual description of each room.
- Princess Theatre
- The ornate Princess Theatre was first Second Empire building in Melbourne. There has been a theatre on this site since 1854; the current building, the fourth incarnation, was completed in 1886. This site has minimal information other than dates and names, but I include it as the only building history I could find for this beautiful landmark.
- A nearly identical version of this essay appears in On Cue, an arts and entertainment site; there is no improvement in the text, but do take a look at the picture of the hall taken from the stage.
- Rialto Towers
- At 63 stories, this is Melbourne's tallest building and the tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere. This site provides impressive construction statistics for a tall-buildings fan, as well as the project description and team (including Grollo Australia Ltd. of Grollo Tower fame), site constraints, and construction techniques. Despite its imposing modern silhouette in the city skyline, the Rialto project also involved restoration of two beautiful Victorian structures next door, the Venetian-style Meredien Hotel (formerly the Rialto Building) and its neighbor, the Winfield's Franco-Flemish hodgepodge facade. The architecture section of the site summarizes these statistics into a brief narrative and also has 360º view of the lobby. Both pages are a bit self-promoting, but the construction page in particular is valuable for its blow-by-blow account of this massive project.
- Royal Exhibition Building
- The new Melbourne Museum is also the curator of its stately Victorian neighbor. The relationship between these two masterpiece public buildings is more than geographical: in 1880, REB opened for an Interantional Exhibition of the world's cultural and technological achievements; today, the Melbourne Museum does the same. Although this site, part of the Melbourne Museum's, doesn't tell us much about the construction or appearance of the building, it does us describe its soul, its purpose, its use, and the social context in which it was built.
- St. Paul's Cathedral
- The cathedral maintains a no-frills webpage on its century-long history. Standing at one of the city's busiest intersections (Flinders and Swanston Streets, opposite Flinders Street Station), St. Paul's towers are visible in many city views (and were in fact one of the stumbling blocks faced by Federation Square, whose own towers had to be shortened to preserve the view of St. Paul's). 360-degree interior views are also available; number 3, showing the nave, entryway, and mosaic floor, is my favorite.
- Storey Hall, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
- In a city of colorful lines and shapes, Ashton Raggatt McDougall's 1994 addition to RMIT's student union is a thrilling jumble of violet and emerald geometry, tumbling over the original 1880s sandstone facade. Norman Day's review in Architecture Australia (January/February 1996) spills along similarly, breathlessly evaluating construction techniques, materials, colors, spaces, thematic statements, and societal allusions. The architects' visions are captured in selected quotes, photographs, and plan drawings. While Day's writing is not exactly straightforward, neither is the building itself - I can forgive his verbiage because reading his energetic piece makes me feel that I am there.
- Perhaps because Storey Hall is so unusual, many writers have something to say about it. RMIT's brief introduction to this remarkable building sums up the history of the building, its interior areas, and uses (gallery, auditorium, classrooms, and café); however, the wonders of the new construction are only hinted at. This piece is definitely not the insider's view that I was hoping to find. Aardvark's entry has beautiful facade, aerial, and interior photos, but its writers, understandably excited about the archtitects' use of color, wander off into obtuse architecture-ese at the expense of the forms and spaces. L'Erma also focuses on the impression of the building and is typically evocative: "some 'X-Files' bug eating away the past from the adjoining buildings to create a new architectural life form."
- The building's award-winning design seems to have inspired complicated, inflated writing. Writers have employed intelletual-sounding allusions and assertions that they otherwise avoid. Phrases like "a fusillade of discourses" (Day in Architecture Australia, being complicated as well as eager) and "a new exegesis" (Aardvark) may do little for the reader other than let them know that they should be impressed. While the beautiful images on these websites help the reader visually explore the building, the writing can confuse further exploration. If you can find a copy, try Joe Rollo's essay in his Contemporary Melbourne Architecture (1999).
- Perhaps because Storey Hall is so unusual, many writers have something to say about it. RMIT's brief introduction to this remarkable building sums up the history of the building, its interior areas, and uses (gallery, auditorium, classrooms, and café); however, the wonders of the new construction are only hinted at. This piece is definitely not the insider's view that I was hoping to find. Aardvark's entry has beautiful facade, aerial, and interior photos, but its writers, understandably excited about the archtitects' use of color, wander off into obtuse architecture-ese at the expense of the forms and spaces. L'Erma also focuses on the impression of the building and is typically evocative: "some 'X-Files' bug eating away the past from the adjoining buildings to create a new architectural life form."
- Victorian Arts Center
- Browse a few exterior views at the above site - and decide for yourself whether the undulating base of the spire looks like a ballerina's tutu - then read the building's history. This location across the Yarra River from Flinders Street Station has had a continuing parade of entertainments over the last century - circus, dance hall, cinema, and roller skating. During World War II, state government eyed the site for public use; meanwhile the state visual and performing arts groups, backed by public support, looked for a new home. More than a decade passed before the land was legally clear for the performing arts center and gallery, now home to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Ballet, and Australian Opera. Like the piece on Melbourne Central (above), this text spends much of its energy on explaining how and why the center's visual focal point, the spire, developed, although the writer here is less abstract and more clear. The essay has two major omissions: it ignores the interior of the buildings and their performance areas and lacks in the visual - either images or textual descriptions. It does not do justice to these striking buildings and their role in the city's cultural life. The site deals thoroughly with the points it has discussed, but does not come close to giving a complete picture of Melbourne's cultural center.