| Hotel Australia | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Address | 266 Collins St |
| Town or city | Melbourne |
| Country | Australia |
| Opened | 1939 |
| Closed | 1987 |
| Demolished | 1989 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 12 |
The Hotel Australia was a former hotel in Melbourne, Australia. The hotel was built in 1939 on the site of the former Cafe Australia (which had opened in 1916), and was demolished in 1989.
Designed by Leslie M. Perrott, the Hotel Australia was a 12-storey building with 94 rooms, numerous private dining and function rooms, and was the most prestigious hotel in Melbourne in its day. [1] The hotel included two small cinemas, [2] a restaurant and bar in the basement, and a through-block shopping arcade on the ground floor which was touted as the largest in Australia, known as the Australia Arcade. [3]
The site is now occupied by a Novotel hotel and the shopping arcade St. Collins Lane.
From the 1870s, the north side of Collins Street between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets became the most fashionable shopping area in Melbourne, known as ‘the block’. The Cafe Gunsler was established in 1879, located in the centre of the block, and was one of the most fashionable restaurants and event venues in the city. It was refurbished in 1890 and renamed the Vienna Cafe, which was bought in 1908 by another prominent restaurateur, the Greek Australian Anthony Lucas. During 1916, World War 1, the cafe was closed due to its German associations.
Lucas employed the recently arrived Walter Burley Griffin, who worked with his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, to design an extensive new cafe, with the more patriotic name of the Cafe Australia, that was initially to include a concert hall, and ‘winter garden’. [4] Opening in October 1916, the cafe featured series of rooms, an entry bar, a Palm Court, a Fountain Court, leading through to the main arched roofed double height dining room. It was adorned with painted murals, sculpture and highly patterned plasterwork, and specially designed furniture and fittings, in the Griffin’s distinctive angular geometric style. [5]
The hotel was sold by Lucas in 1927 for 20,000 pounds to Fred Matear and Norman Carlyon and completely refurbished in the process.
In 1937, plans for the new Hotel Australia was announced. The scheme for the twelve-story building included an arcade which would connect Collins to Little Collins, and line up with other lanes and arcades connecting Flinders Street right through to Bourke Street. [6] In recognition of the popularity and unique design of the Cafe Australia, the hotel included an arched-roofed ballroom which was a simplified version of the cafe’s main room. [7]
The first event held at the new hotel occurred on June 22, 1939, with a benefit gala for St. Vincent's Hospital. [8]
During World War II, Douglas MacArthur used two floors of the hotel as his headquarters for a time. [9]
The hotel hosted many dignitaries. Sir Robert Menzies enjoyed the hotel dining room while Harold Holt had his wedding reception at the hotel. [10]
The Citistate development group bought the hotel in June 1987 at a price of $55 million. [11] While preservationists wanted to save the structures, Citistate had purchased the building in a vacant state and claimed the building was a fire hazard, despite being a graded building in a heritage precinct, the City of Melbourne allowed the demolition. [12]
The hotel was ultimately demolished in the winter of 1989, with the fire marshal declaring the demolition site a fire hazard. [13] The replacement building included a budget hotel on top of a three level shopping arcade, which was known as the Australia On Collins. In 2018/19 the arcade was revamped and renamed St Collins Lane, and the hotel is currently the Novotel on Collins. [14]
Bourke Street is one of the main streets in the Melbourne central business district and a core feature of the Hoddle Grid. It was traditionally the entertainment hub of inner-city Melbourne, and is now also a popular tourist destination and tram thoroughfare.
Collins Street is a major street in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was laid out in the first survey of Melbourne, the original 1837 Hoddle Grid, and soon became the most desired address in the city. Collins Street was named after Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania David Collins who led a group of settlers in establishing a short-lived settlement at Sorrento in 1803.
Civic is the city centre or central business district of Canberra. "Civic" is a common name for the district, but it is also called Civic Centre, City Centre, Canberra City and Canberra, and its official division name is City.
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Centre Place is a laneway and pedestrian precinct in Melbourne, Australia. It runs north from Flinders Lane to Collins Street, between Elizabeth Street and Swanston Street.
Little Collins Street is a minor street in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Degraves Street is a pedestrian precinct and thoroughfare in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is a short, narrow laneway in the Central Business District that runs north–south from Flinders Street to Flinders Lane and is situated in-between Swanston Street and Elizabeth Street. Degraves, as the street is colloquially known, is famous for its alfresco dining options and because it epitomises Melbourne's coffee culture and street art scene. For these reasons it has also become a popular tourist destination.
Block Place is a street in Melbourne. It is a short, narrow partially covered laneway, running south from Little Collins Street between Swanston Street and Elizabeth Street in the central business district of Melbourne.
Flinders Lane is a minor street and thoroughfare in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The laneway runs east–west from Spring Street to Spencer Street in-between Flinders and Collins Streets. Originally laid out as part of the Hoddle Grid in 1837, the laneway was once the centre of Melbourne's rag trade and is still home to boutique designers and high-end retailers including Chanel, now perched alongside numerous upscale hotels like the W Hotel Melbourne and Adelphi Hotel, loft apartments, cafes and bars.
The Block Arcade is an historic shopping arcade in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Constructed in two stages in 1891 and 1893, it is particularly elaborate, has always hosted elegant shops, and ranks among Melbourne's most popular tourist attractions.
Antony John Jereos Lekatsas (1862–1946), best remembered as Anthony J. J. Lucas, was an influential Greek Australian businessman noted for his philanthropic activities and as proprietor and developer of a number of noted entertainment and restaurant ventures in Melbourne, Australia in the early 20th century. Lucas became the Greek Consul General to Australia in 1921, then Consul in Melbourne in 1931–46.
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The architecture of Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria and second most populous city in Australia, is characterised by a wide variety of styles dating from the early years of European settlement to the present day. The city is particularly noted for its mix of Victorian architecture and contemporary buildings, with 74 skyscrapers in the city centre, the most of any city in the Southern Hemisphere.
Joseph Jackman was the founder of Jackman's Rooms which incorporated a restaurant "Jackman's Dining Room", meeting rooms, dance hall and banqueting room at 48–50 King William Street, Adelaide, and several other cafes in Adelaide, South Australia.
St. Collins Lane is a shopping centre completed in 2016, designed by ARM Architecture, which stretches between Collins and Little Collins streets in Melbourne, Australia. Previously there were restaurants, arcades and hotels on the site.
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Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Australia, was an important Victorian-era city and erected "some of the world's most majestic buildings" of the era. Several buildings survive from the period, including the State Library of Victoria (1856), Parliament House (1856), the General Post Office, the Royal Exhibition Building (1880), the Windsor Hotel (1884), the Block Arcade (1893), and the Rialto Building Group (1888–1891). However, many of the well-known architectural gems of Melbourne's Victorian central city were demolished in the 20th century. Most were lost in the 1950s-70s when Melbourne, like many other cities, sought to reinvent itself as a modern metropolis. Whelan the Wrecker was by far the most success demolition company in the period, and was responsible for almost all of these losses, but often saved items such as statuary for resale.
