The architecture of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, is characterised by a wide variety of styles. The city is particularly noted for its mix of Victorian architecture and contemporary buildings, with 79 skyscrapers (buildings 150 metres or taller) completed or topped-out, the most of any city in Australia.
In the wake of the 1850s Victoria gold rush, Melbourne entered a lengthy boom period that culminated in the real-estate bubble of the 1880s and early 1890s. This saw the construction of a large amount of ornate, High Victorian Boom style buildings in the city centre. Melbourne's skyline subsequently transformed, becoming the first early skyscraper city outside the United States; architectural historian Miles Lewis describes Melbourne of the period as a "Queen Anne Chicago". Melbourne at this time was also second only to London as the largest and wealthiest city in the British Empire, and earned the still-quoted moniker "Marvellous Melbourne", coined by English journalist George Augustus Sala while visiting in 1885. The affluence of the period is reflected in many surviving buildings, including the Royal Exhibition Building, Australia's first UNESCO World Heritage registered building. Beyond the city centre, suburbs arose and became peppered with mansions, villas and terraces with iron lace verandahs, and many suburbs developed bustling main streets, leaving a substantial architectural legacy.
Following a financial collapse in the early 1890s, Melbourne's growth returned by the early 20th century, and continued at a more modest pace in the following decades. The Federation period of 1900–1915 saw a new crop of commercial buildings in the city centre; concerns about the likely congestion caused by skyscraper development and the influence of the City Beautiful movement saw a 132 feet (40 metres) height limit introduced in 1916 (which still allowed for ornamental towers). Suburban development of detached houses continued, in the new red brick Federation style. After the restrictions of World War I, development again resumed, with American influences now evident, such as Stripped Classical office buildings, and Californian Bungalow houses. After the interruption of the Great Depression, development again resumed about 1933, with central city commercial buildings now in the Art Deco style, and suburban development in a range of revivals, such as Spanish Mission or Old English. The development of low-rise flats in inner and middle suburban areas, which began just before World War I, continued in the 1920s in various revival styles, and increased markedly in the 1930s, usually in Art Deco style, a small boom which was abruptly terminated by World War II in 1940.
The post World War II period ushered in a new boom, with the city hosting the 1956 Summer Olympics, and the lifting of height limits at the same time led to a boom in high rise office building, beginning with ICI House, completed in 1958. This boom resulted in the loss of many of the city's Victorian era buildings, which were replaced by modernist structures. Concern at the losses led to the establishment of the Victorian Heritage Register in 1974, and the heritage list now includes many notable landmarks.
Since the 2000s, the central city and neighbouring Southbank and Melbourne Docklands urban renewal areas have been the subject of a residential revival which has seen a new boom in high rise construction. Some blocks of the city are now developed to very high densities, and include the tallest buildings in Australia, including the 297m (92 floors) Eureka Tower, which was the tallest residential tower in the world when completed in 2006, and its spiritual successor Australia 108. The city has also added some notable architectural landmarks including Southern Cross Station and Federation Square.
Distinctively Melbourne styles include the many bluestone (basalt) constructions of the early colonial and gold rush era,From molten lava to cobbled laneways: how bluestone shaped Melbourne's identity from The Conversation 27 June 2019 extensive use of polychrome brickworkThematic history: A history of the City of Melbourne's urban environment ATTACHMENT 3 AGENDA ITEM 5.1 FUTURE MELBOURNE COMMITTEE 12 June 2012 and a regional variation of the boom-style Victorian Italianate Filigree (decorative cast iron) terrace houses featuring excessively high and ornamented parapetsLate Victorian [1875 > 1901 house styles Heritage Council of Victoria] from the High Victorian period and a residential style pioneered by Robin Boyd and Roy Grounds known as the post-war Melbourne regional style.NATIONAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA Heritage in Trust (ACT) November 2022 pg. 2 ISSN 2206-4958 These attributes are rare elsewhere.
History
Melbourne is home to the oldest building in Australia,How an English cottage became Australia's oldest building by Penny Walker for the Telegraph 10 January 2019 Cooks' Cottage (1755), however the former home of British explorer James Cook was transplanted in 1934 from the English village of Great Ayton, North YorkshireThe Captain Cook Society: Cook's Log, page 212, volume 6, number 3 (1983). by the Australian philanthropist Sir Russell Grimwade.
1835–1850: Earliest buildings
The original inhabitants, the Wurundjeri were known to have created temporary structures called Mia-mia out of bark, saplings and timber and were observed by Protector of Aborigines William Thomas to be comfortably housed.FIRST PEOPLES AND THE YARRA
Melbourne was first settled by Europeans in 1835, when rival entrepreneurs from Tasmania, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner sent expeditions looking for sheep pasture. Batman famously stated that “This is the place for a village”, generally believed to refer to the point on the Yarra River where freshwater was found (near today's Queensbridge). However Batman's Treaty was declared void by the government of the time so what was later known as the Port Phillip District was established as a squatter's encampment. The land to the north of the Yarra was a gentle valley between hills to the east and west, and riding ground to the north. Nevertheless, in 1837, government surveyor Robert Hoddle laid out a grid of streets, approximately 30 metres wide (considerably wider than Sydney streets) between the two hills and aligned with the river.
Early buildings were modest and typical of a frontier town, there were few landmarks of note. From early accounts and sketches there were few if any buildings taller than two storeys. Many were of timber construction and those of brick and stone. Almost all were built in the prominent colonial architectural style of the time, the Georgian revival. Most were detached or semi-detached buildings with gable or hip rooves and simple undecorated walls.A history of the City of Melbourne's urban environment from the City of Melbourne Melbourne was early to expand and spread from the Hoddle grid along the Yarra and Maribyrnong River and Port Phillip Bay. Early buildings that survived later development can be found in suburbs such as East Melbourne, Fitzroy, Hawthorn, Williamstown, St Kilda and Heidelberg among others.
The best known surviving building from this period is the St James Old Cathedral (1839–1847), which originally stood at the corner of William and Little Collins streets in what was then the centre of town but was later relocated.
Another of Melbourne's oldest buildings La Trobe's Cottage (1839) was a prefabricated home constructed in England and transported to Melbourne. Like St James it has been relocated, though several times prior to its current site in Kings Domain.
Other English styles, including English Gothic, Jacobean Revival and Tudor Revival were also evident in some early buildings. Part of St Francis Church on the corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth streets dates to 1842, the simple construction is Melbourne's oldest Gothic revival building, though its original form was later significantly augmented and altered."Early history", St Francis’ Church, Melbourne The Hawthorns, Hawthorn (1845),The Hawthorns - Victorian Heritage Register St Peter's Church, Eastern Hill (1846),St Peter's Eastern Hill Precinct - Victorian Heritage Register Invergowie in Hawthorn (1846),Invergowrie - Victorian Heritage Register Wattle House in St Kilda (1846),Wattle House St Kilda Historical Society as well as Banyule (1846) and St John's Anglican Church (1849)St Johns Anglican Church - Victorian Heritage Register in Heidelberg, Overnewton in Keilor (1849–1859)State Library of Victoria photograph of Toorak House and Whitbyfield in Brunswick (c1850)Whitby House - Victorian Heritage Register are other examples of early Tudor revival.
Early suburban architecture exhibited a variety of different styles. For example, Charterisville in Ivanhoe (1840)Charterisville - Victorian Heritage Register is a sandstone residence with a strong association with the artists colony at Heidelberg; Wentworth House in Pascoe Vale (1842–1852)Wentworth House - Victorian Heritage Register is one of Melbourne's earliest bluestone houses; Como House in South Yarra (1847) is considered one of the finest colonial era regency style homes in Victoria; Toorak House (1849) after which Toorak was named is a significant pre-gold rush Italianate mansion considered the finest in the colony;Toorak House - Victorian Heritage Register and, Manor House in Broadmeadows (1850) is a combination of Scottish residential style in bluestone.Manor House - Victorian Heritage Register
Devonshire Arms Hotel in Fitzroy (1843) a modest Georgian style building is the oldest extant hotel in the city.Devonshire Arms Hotel - Victorian Heritage Database Job Warehouse (54-62 Bourke Street) (1848–1849), a double storey building in the Georgian style is the oldest surviving row and typical of the era, though slightly modified.Job Warehouse Victorian Heritage Council Oddfellows Hotel (1848–1850) is another early example.Former Oddfellows Hotel - Victorian Heritage Register The John Smith Residence (1848–1852) is the oldest surviving residence built in the Hoddle Grid, though the Georgian style home later had an additional storey added.Former John Smith House - Victorian Heritage Register A two-storey colonial regency style shop on the corner of King and Latrobe Street (1850) is recognised as the oldest known building in the Hoddle Grid with an unmodified original appearance.Melbourne's oldest building is set to sell for the first time in more than 100 years by Tony Moclai 12 April 2021 The Duke of Wellington Hotel on Flinders Street (1850), another modest two-storey Georgian style building, is also believed to date to this era and is cited as the oldest public bar in the Hoddle Grid. Another building known as the Black Eagle Hotel was built in 1850 as two storey Georgian terraces in Little Lonsdale street may have operated as a hotel from the outset.Black Eagle Hotel - Victorian Heritage Register By the 1850s the city centre's early subdivisions began to fill in and consisted of fragmented rows of attached buildings, most a couple of storeys high serviced by rear laneways, a plan which helped dictate the form of many buildings in the subsequent decades.
Named the capital of the new Colony of Victoria on 1 July 1851 Melbourne even prior to the discovery of gold it was a successful settlement. Having grown mostly due to rich Victorian pastures it had operated as a busy port since 1841 and had a population of approximately 23,000. Despite being the youngest of the colonial capitals, it had overtaken all but Sydney.The Golden Metropolis: Overview
1851–1880: Gold Rush era