An Annotated Guide
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Architecture Collections
- Aardvark Guide to Contemporary Melbourne Architecture, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (also on CD-ROM)
- The Aardvark collection is the best-known reference for contemporary Melbourne structures (defined here as the mid-1970s to mid-1980s). Aardvark includes civic, institutional, corporate, and domestic buildings, as well as structures like bridges and stairways. Building records consist of images, project team, client, dates, location and map link, and a review. Thumbnail images of other projects by the archtitect are linked to their own records. Because Aardvark is graphics-intensive, it loads slowly, but is absolutely worth the wait. Valuable as a survey and research tool for modern works and also as an exmaple of web-based architcture resources can do. Essential.
- The map: zoom in (+) and out (-) over regions of the Melbourne area (handily identified in pop-up boxes when you mouse over) to see building locations. Once you've selected an area, you can click on a building location or see the listings for the region in text form. Either will get you to the record for a structure. Probably hard to use if you're not already familiar with the city, althoguh at the region level, major streets are labeled.
- The index to archtiets will be discussed in architects.
- Searching: Even from a variety of campus and private computers, I have not been able to get the search function to work. I infer from the search interface that Aardvark will perform open web searches as well as internal ones, although I found no description of its workings on the site.
- The map: zoom in (+) and out (-) over regions of the Melbourne area (handily identified in pop-up boxes when you mouse over) to see building locations. Once you've selected an area, you can click on a building location or see the listings for the region in text form. Either will get you to the record for a structure. Probably hard to use if you're not already familiar with the city, althoguh at the region level, major streets are labeled.
- Architecture Australia
- Architecture Australia, the journal of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, is online. Text can be read and searched at this site. Whatever the biases of the RAIA may be, this is a gorgeous site. Browsing is simple, thanks to good abstracts and links; try the "Headlines - Victoria," "Projects," and "Features" sections to get to Melbourne projects. The writing in Australian Architecture communicates the pragmatic and artistic sides of architectural projects - description without much jargon, and usually an opinion peeking through.
- Butterpaper (formerly Zebra:Crossings in Australasian Architecture - City Guide
- Australasian architecture meta-site indexes some Melbourne-specific sites. The links to the juciest stories are dead and the site loads slowly, but the range of information on this site is impressive in scope and source. Zebra does a good job at pulling stories and information from a variety of international sources. Be sure to look under the banner "related: zines: institutions" for a section on Melboune resources. As of September 2003, the news section is very current, with postings from the week I checked, including stories about the recent destruction of the St. Kilda pier.
- Digital Image Archive, University of Melbourne Faculty of Architecture, Building and Plannig
- Databse of images of world art and architecture, searchable by keyword, name, architect, type, country, and date period. Users must request a password, but once you have an account, your searches and selected hits can be saved as a slide show. Construction and art images are also available and can be searched independently. The interface is intuitive, but a thesaurus for all fields would really add to the efficiency of the database (the pull-down menus for date ranges and building types are a good start). All the help screens were under construction when I visited the site in November 2001. Result lists show a thumbnail image with a brief textual description. The number of hits can be a bit misleading, as many buildings will have multiple views. Despite these frustrations, the real value of this collection is its inclusion of images and descriptions of non-famous and small-scale projects, such as elementary schools and neighborhood churches. A helpful addition to other lists of landmarks and greatest hits.
- Projects, Royal Australian Institute of Architects
- Another searchable database of 2000 Australian buildings, all entrants in the RAIA National Architecture Awards. Records contain the architect's statement, project location, and the project team (listing not just the architect but lighting designers, landscapers, structural specialists, etc.). A thorough introduction to what players and ideas are involved in these prize-winning projects. I could not find an easy way to retrieve only Melbourne projects (go to “advanced search” at the bottom of the page, type in “Melbourne” in the project name box, and select “project name” from the next pull-down menu); this site is more workable if you have a building name or type to look up.