William Pitt was an Australian architect and politician. Pitt is best known as one of the outstanding architects of the "boom" era of the 1880s in Melbourne, designing some of the city's most elaborate High Victorian commercial buildings. He worked in a range of styles including Gothic Revival, Italianate, French Second Empire, and his own inventive eclectic compositions. He had a notable second career after the crash of the 1890s, becoming a specialist in theatres and industrial buildings.
Spring Street is a major street in the Melbourne central business district, Australia. It runs roughly north-south and is the easternmost street in the original 1837 Hoddle Grid.
Glazed architectural terra cotta is a ceramic masonry building material used as a decorative skin. It featured widely in the 'terracotta revival' from the 1880s until the 1930s. It was used in the UK, United States, Canada and Australia and is still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments. It is the glazed version of architectural terracotta; the material in both its glazed and unglazed versions is sturdy and relatively inexpensive, and can be molded into richly ornamented detail. Glazed terra-cotta played a significant role in architectural styles such as the Chicago School and Beaux-Arts architecture.
Degraves Street is a pedestrian precinct and thoroughfare in the Melbourne central business district in Victoria, Australia. It is a short, narrow laneway that runs north–south from Flinders Street to Flinders Lane and is situated in-between Swanston and Elizabeth streets. 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.
Harry Norris was an Australian architect, one of the more prolific and successful in Melbourne in the interwar period, best known for his 1930s Art Deco commercial work in the Melbourne central business district.
Flinders Lane is a minor street and thoroughfare in the Melbourne central business district of 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.
Bates Smart is an architectural firm with studios in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1853 by Joseph Reed, it is one of Australia's oldest architectural firms. Over the decades, the firm's practices involving architecture, interior design, urban design, strategy, sustainability and research, have been responsible for some of Australia’s most recognizable buildings.
The Block Arcade is a historic shopping arcade in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Constructed between 1891 and 1893, it is considered one of the late Victorian era's finest shopping arcades and ranks among Melbourne's most popular tourist attractions.
Cathedral Arcade is a heritage shopping arcade in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Marcus Barlow (1890–1954) was a prominent Australian architect in the interwar period, who designed a number of notable central city buildings in his home-town of Melbourne. He is best known for the 1932 Manchester Unity Building, whose Gothic corner spire dominates the major intersection of the city.
The Melbourne central business district in Australia is home to numerous lanes and arcades. Often called "laneways", these narrow streets and pedestrian paths date mostly from the Victorian era, and are a popular cultural attraction for their cafes, bars and street art.
The Nicholas Building is a landmark historic office and retail building located at 37 Swanston St, at the intersection of Swanston Street and Flinders Lane, in the Melbourne central business district, Victoria, Australia. Designed by architect Harry Norris and completed in 1926, it is the grandest example in Melbourne of what is known as 'Commercial Palazzo' style, featuring a solid base, vertical middle floors, and a large cornice. It has housed a range of small businesses, and is now known for its creative industry tenants such as fashion designers and artists and specialist retailers. It had the longest operating manual lifts in the city, and the ground floor Cathedral Arcade is one of the most notable 1920s interiors in the city. The building is listed by the National Trust and by Heritage Victoria.
The architecture of Melbourne, Victoria, and Australia is characterised by a wide variety of styles. 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 Plottel was a British born architect who was active in Melbourne, Australia between 1911 and World War II, working in a range of revival styles, as well as Art Deco in the 1930s. He is best known for the St Kilda Synagogue (1927) and the Footscray Town Hall (1936).
Deva House is a 1926 commercial building in Melbourne, Australia designed by Harry Norris, one of the most prolific architects in the city during the period from 1920 to 1930, and noted for his Art Deco buildings, incorporating both emerging Australian and American architectural styles.
Yule House is a five-story office building situated at 309-311 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia. It was constructed in 1932 from a design by Melbourne-based architecture firm, Oakley & Parkes. Yule House was one of Melbourne’s first commercial buildings to exhibit the Streamline Moderne style of architecture and began the style's rise in popularity throughout the 1930s. The current Yule House stands as a redesigned fireproof replacement of the original, which was destroyed by fire in 1931. William Yule had been the owner of the land since the early 1900s and it remained part of his estate until 1985.
Mitchell House is an historic six-storey Streamline Moderne commercial building located at 352-362 Lonsdale Street, on the corner of Elizabeth Street in Melbourne, Australia. It was built in 1937 for the Mitchell Brush Company, and designed by prolific architect Harry Norris.
The Australian Catholic Assurance Building is an Art Deco office building at 118-126 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was built as the Victorian headquarters of Australian Catholic Assurance, a commercial insurance firm established with the aim of serving the Catholic community in Australia. The building was designed by Sydney-based architecture firm Hennessy & Hennessy, built in 1935-36, and has a twin in Sydney.
HW & FB Tompkins was an architectural firm established by the brothers Henry (Harry) William and Frank Beauchamp Tompkins in 1898 in Melbourne, Australia. They went on to become a major commercial firm, designing a large number of department stores, hotels, clubs and office buildings and banks over the next 40 years, many in central Melbourne and most still standing. They were stylistic and structural innovators, an area best known for the huge Myer Department store in Bourke Street, built in many stages in different styles from 1914 to 1933.
