Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Week 5:
Melbourne: architectural periods
Victorian - the period of architecture during the reign of Queen Victoria: 1837-1901.
In the Colony of Victoria, Victorian architecture emerged generally from 1835, until the economic depression of c1892.
The period can be sub-divided:
Early Victorian: 1837-50. Mid-Victorian: 1851-75. Late-Victorian (or High Victorian): c1875-95.
Early styles: 1835-70.
!851: - The Gold Rush. - Victoria separated from NSW, - The Great Exhibition, Crystal Palace, London, when Victoria entered the world stage.
Italianate style: 1870-85.
Boom style: 1885-92
Federation and Arts and Crafts styles: 1900-1915.
Inter-war styles: 1920-40.
Post-war: 1950-.
1850-1910 Melbourne domestic styles
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Miner’s cottage
‘Miner’s cottage,’ Clunes.
Symmetrical double front, convex verandah, timber posts, fretwork decoration, double gable and rear skillion, external brick chimney, c1850-1910.
Italianate
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
In Melbourne: usually an asymmetrical, picturesque composition, Renaissance (or Italian vernacular) decorative elements, particularly: bracketed, or dentillated eaves, canted bay windows, tower, render, astylar, hip roof at low pitch. Italianate villas, and terraces: sometimes very simple, when picturesque composition was not possible, so then symmetrical.
Italianate: Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (formerly Ulimaroa), 630 St Kilda Road, Melbourne. John A B Koch, Architect, 1889. Rear, 7-level addition: Norman Day, Architect, 1993.
Italianate: simple timber detached workers’ cottages, Park Street, Abbotsford, c1870. Frieze, paired eaves brackets, hipped roof, mock ashlar façade and weatherboard sides.
French Second Empire Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Linked pavilions with a steep, often curved, roof behind a parapet, with coronas and other elaborate decoration.
French Second Empire: Princess’ Theatre, Spring Street, William Pitt, architect 1886.
Boom Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
With parapets, often balustraded, with stilted segmental, or round-headed windows, elaborate heavy decoration, with elements from the Late Renaissance, Baroque and Mannerist styles, including: vermiculated quoins, cement castings: masks, urns, balloons, scrolls, swags, consoles and finials; and elaborate cast iron lace.
A quadruple-fronted Boom villa, Kay Street, Carlton, c1890.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Boom terraced house, Nicholson Street, Carlton, c1890.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Late C19 and early C20 decoration
Wallpaper, moulded fibrous plaster, paint colour schemes, stencilling, graining, gilding, bas-relief and Wunderlich pressed sheet metal.
Wunderlich pressed sheet metal.
Stencilling.
Stencilled dado of internal wall. Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Interior wood graining.
Italianate house, in ‘heritage colours.’
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Polychromatic brickwork
Polychromatic - exposed masonry in at least three colours and combined to form bold geometric patterns, eg: polychromatic brickwork (or polychrome brickwork), ranging from creams, terracotta, or dark brown.
Polychromatic brickwork: Norwood House, 17 Norwood Crescent, Moonee Ponds, c1875.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
C20 Melbourne styles: Federation
Previously known as Queen Anne, or Edwardian. Houses were smaller than Victorian due to smaller budgets. The roof was dominant, with hips, a steep pitch, complex forms, minor gables, dormers, attic balconies, and red Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles replacing slate, with finials, cresting, and corner candle-snuffer roofs.
They had a diagonal axis, verandahs with a fretted timber valance replacing cast iron, turned posts, and returns around a corner. There were Medieval and Asian influences, eg: in the gables and roofs, and Nationalist decoration of flora and fauna.
Alba Longa, 4 Appian Way, Appian Way, Burwood, Sydney, NSW.
Unidentified Federation style house, Melbourne.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Unidentified Federation style houses, Melbourne.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau influence
Under the Licensing Act, 1908, many small local hotels were closed, and so larger hotels were needed.
Arts and Crafts Style: Goldfingers Mens’ Club, former Kilkenny Inn, King Street, cnr Lonsdale Street, 1913, Robert Haddon, non-registered architect. Wrought iron, lettering and piazzas.
Arts and Crafts Style: Chadwick House, The Eyrie, Eaglemont, 1903, Harold Desbrowe Annear, Architect. Carefully sited, piazzas, valences frame iconic views, plan without corridors and modular design.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Arts and Crafts Style: Dove, 2 Ardoch Avenue, Ardoch complex. A Clissold, Architect, 1925, a characteristic Ardoch building.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Freestyle
C1900-20: fragmentation of forms and eclectic mixture of elements. This is still an influential approach.
Eastbourne House, 62 Wellington Parade, cnr Simpson Street, East Melbourne, 1901, Robert Haddon, non-registered architect. Wrought iron, invented capitals, oriel window, saucer dome, fragmented composition, imaginative Art Nouveau elements.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Californian Bungalow
Lower-pitch roof, often nested gables, verandah with a bressumer on masonry pylons, the verandah often under a gabled roof, natural materials, eg: wall-hung timber shingles, random rubble masonry, river pebbles, unpainted rough-cast render, stained timber and minimal decoration. Influence of USA from 1918 and World War I, and some influence of Asia.
Also: Craftsman Bungalows, and steeper-pitch roofed Chalet Bungalows with attic balconies.
Unidentified Californian Bungalow, rubble masonry pylons, crimp-wire Cyclone fence.
Californian Bungalow with original paint colours and a crown palm, c1925, Central Avenue, Ivanhoe.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
State Savings Bank of Victoria houses
A version of the Bungalow style. G Burridge Leith was the Bank’s architect. Often with six-paned upper sashes and posts, or post-pairs, over dwarf pylons. From 1921-30, then less until 1939, in Coburg, Brunswick, Preston, Hawthorn, Kew, Ivanhoe, Camberwell, Box Hill, Heidelberg, Malvern, Oakleigh and Brighton.
2 State Savings Bank of Victoria houses, Thorsby Grove, Ivanhoe, c1925.
Unidentified State Savings Bank of Victoria house.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
House types: bungalow, villa, palazzo and apartment
Bungalow
- A small singled-storied detached suburban house.
- Also, in Australia, a small, detached backyard self-contained accommodation for an extended family member, c/f: granny flat, habitable outbuilding, or sleepout.
- Also, in Australia and United States, a domestic style, eg: Californian Bungalow.
Lippincott House, Glenard Drive, Eaglemont, 1917, Roy Lippincott with Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. A small detached suburban house.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Villa
- A larger detached family house within a garden. Historically, an ancient Roman country estate. There were several types of these, and several other later meanings.
Villa Capra, 'La Rotonda,' Vicenza, 1550-01, Andrea Palladio.
Como, Como Avenue, South Yarra, 1846, 1854 & 1874, A E Johnson, Architect.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
- Also, in Australia, a detached single-family house, usually of the 1940s-60s, a hip- roofed, stepped double- or triple-fronted.
Triple-fronted cream brick villa, 31 Nottingham Street, Sunshine North.
Also, villa units - a multi-unit development, or retirement home.
Villa unit retirement home, 16 Bedford Street, Box Hill.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Palazzo
An Italian town palace, sometimes containing apartments. Or, that type in any Italian urban building.
Palazzo Farnese, Rome, Antonio da Sangallo Younger (-1546), Michelangelo’ (1546-49). 13-bays, very high ceilings, 3 stories, with, piazza, grand internal courtyard, rear garden and river building facing the family’s Villa Farnesina, across the River Tiber.
Royal Terrace, Nicholson Street, cnr Gertrude Street, attributed to John Gill, 1854-6. 20-bays, 3-stories, front and rear gardens. Palazzo form.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Apartments
Insulae - ancient Roman flats housing bock, 3-4 stories, built of brick and concrete. They housed most of Rome’s urban population, including ordinary people of lower- or middle-class, with shops and other businesses on the ground floor street front. Some were around a central courtyard.
Insula, Ostia Antica, near Rome C2 BC, unknown designer. These ones are spacious and well-lit with large windows.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
] Apartments, New York configuration.
The Dakota, New York - a cooperative apartment building, NW cnr 72nd Street & Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan, NYC, 1880-84, Henry Hardenbergh, architect.
It has an internal light court, overlooks Central Park, and is one of Manhattan's most prestigious and exclusive. Apartments sell for $4-$30 million, Yoko Ono owns several. The board vets potential residents and rejected Carly Simon, Billy Joel Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas. The principal rooms face the street, while dining room, kitchen, and other auxiliary rooms face the courtyard. Its cross- ventilation was unusual in NYC then. Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
The Dakota, New York.
Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Alcaston House, 2 Collins Street, 1930, A & K Henderson. A Modernist Renaissance Palazzo, that visually relates to other buildings around.
The podium is medical consulting rooms, with light courts, recessed bays, roof gardens, cross-ventilation and views from all flats, sometimes from 3 sides. It is an excellent model for future apartment blocks, much better than the Dakota.
Six-pack flats block. Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
‘Walk-up,’ no lift, 3 floors, access from stair.
43 Caroline Street, South Yarra, 1960s.
300 Ferrars Street, South Melbourne, 1960s. Richard Peterson Architect, RMIT Lectures, Words About Buildings in Melbourne, 2014
Eureka Tower Apartments, 2002-06, Nonda Katsalidis, Fender Katsalidis. Riverside Quay, cnr Cook Street, off City Road & Southgate Avenue, Southbank, 88 stories. It was briefly the highest residential building in the world. It has individual strata- titles with a body corporate. The 22nd floor apartment is still for sale at $22 million. Photo: John Gollings.