Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Architecture & Urban Planning
For a planned city, and a relatively youthful one, Melbourne's streetscapes are richly tex-
tured. Long considered one of the world's most lovely Victorian-era cities, Melbourne cap-
tures the confident spirit of that age, with exuberantly embellished Second Empire institu-
tions and hulking former factories that would do Manchester proud. Flinders Street Station
and the original Queen Victoria Hospital (now part of the QV shopping centre) herald in
the Federation era, when a new Australian identity was being fashioned from the fetching
combination of red brick and ornate wood. Look down Swanston St from Lonsdale St and
you'll catch a glimpse of a mini-Manhattan - Melbourne's between-the-wars optimism is
captured in its string of stunning (if somewhat stunted) art deco skyscrapers, such as the
Manchester Unity Building. Walter Burley Griffin worked in the city at this time too, creat-
ing the ornate, organic Newman College in the University of Melbourne and the mesmer-
ising ode to the metropolitan, the Capitol Theatre, now a part-time cinema and university
lecture hall.
By mid-century, modernist architects sought new ways to connect with the local land-
scape as well as honouring the movement's internationalist roots; the most prominent, Roy
Grounds, designed the Arts Centre and the original NGV Australia on St Kilda Rd. Others
include Robin Boyd, Kevin Borland and Alistair Knox, but their work is mostly residential
so is rarely open to the public. You can, however, visit a beautiful Boyd building anytime:
Jimmy Watson's wine bar in Carlton. Melbourne also had its own mid-century furniture
design stars, Grant and Mary Featherston; their iconic Contour chair of 1951 is highly
prized by collectors, as are their '70s modular sofas.
The 1990s saw a flurry of public building works: Melbourne's architects fell in love with
technology and designed with unorthodox shapes, vibrant colours, tactile surfaces and
sleek structural features. Denton Corker Marshall's Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Exhib-
ition & Convention Centre, Bolte Bridge, and the CityLink sound tunnel are emblematic of
this period. Federation Square, one of the last of these major projects, continues to polarise
opinion. Despite its detractors, its cobbled, inscribed piazza has become the city's chosen
site for celebration and protest - surely the best compliment a populace can pay to an archi-
tect. Ashton Raggatt McDougall's Melbourne Recital Centre is a recent architectural
prizewinner, with an interior that is, according to Melbourne University's Philip Goad, 'like
a beautiful violin'.
Today, Melbourne's architectural energy most often comes not from the monumental but
from what goes on in-between the new and the old, the towering and the tiny. It's also liter-
