In a city known for its architecture, where would you go to see the best of Melbourne? Kellie Harpley takes a stroll with a selection of architects from the southern city.
When you think of Melbourne you think of art galleries, quirky cafes tucked away in indecisive laneways and Australia’s best Italian food. And you think of Federation Square.
Melbournians have fallen in love with Fed Square and it was a unanimous favourite among the architects spoken to for this article.
“It’s architecture that defines a meeting place, and that’s proven to be the case — people tend to gravitate to it,” Woods Bagot managing director Roger Darling, says.
“With Fed Square, Lab Architecture Studio has demonstrated that international quality work fits well in Melbourne.”
Plus Architecture director, Ian Briggs, says Federation Square “captures the sense of Melbourne’s laneway culture and applies a new texture and language to an old pattern”.
Darling believes Melbourne’s laneways themselves are an architectural highlight and “part of the grain of Melbourne”.
Briggs echoed this sentiment, admiring the way the laneways “twist and turn and unveil new and interesting bars and cafes”.
“There is a sense of discovering new and interesting places as you wander around”.
Just five minutes from Federation Square, Briggs also nominates Eureka Tower, by Fender Katsalidis Architects, on Melbourne’s Southbank. “The whole building is a fantastic piece of architecture, but the unique thing about Eureka Tower, from an observation deck point of view, is that it is outside the city.
“You can get a bird’s eye view of the city from the perspective of being outside looking in,” he says, creating a different experience from that of looking down amongst the bustle from a building within the city centre.
Georgie Kearney, senior design architect with Billard Leece, says the great thing about Melbourne is the way the city has come together in the last few years.
“There is just so much to see now. The city knits together, it’s not just singular features. The urban design is really coming together, so you are not just walking from one building to another, you can enjoy the whole city,” she says.
“Even five years ago the city wasn’t being pulled together the way it is now.”
According to Kearney, Melbourne’s presence has been assisted by companies using their buildings as branding. “People have realised that their buildings are part of the iconography of the business.”
In her opinion, the city’s most impressive new building is the Melbourne Theatre Company by Ashton Raggatt McDougall. “It’s a pretty interesting departure. It’s architecture really making its own statement.”
The building, she says, has an aura of mystery about it, which makes it more interesting. “As it unfolds over time and people become more familiar with it, they will start to make of it what they can. It’s a piece of art that’s going to be there for quite a while.”
Briggs adds that Melbourne has a diverse range of wonderful urban landscapes to visit, from Lygon Street to the new Docklands development.
“One is older and a bit beaten up and rough and tough. The other is new and looking forward to what a ready-built city has to offer,” he says.
While there is a certain amount of overlap in the suggested highlights, architect Peter McIntyre is unique in his favourites.
“The first two are both Burley Griffin’s — Newman College at the University of Melbourne and the Capitol Theatre.
He nominated the buildings for the “outstanding quality of their architecture”. “They are the most brilliant designs in Melbourne. “It is the whole quality of the architecture, their construction, the ambience created within the buildings, the incredible imagination that’s been used,” he says.
McIntyre also nominates the Tay Creggan, by Guy Purchase, as an icon of the city, and of architectural design. The building is currently being used as a girls’ school, Strathcona.
“It’s a building in Hawthorn on the Yarra River. It is one of the most imaginative compositions and romantic buildings in the whole of Melbourne,” he says.
Briggs sums up the feeling of the architects when he says there are a number of areas in Melbourne that are exciting.
“The combined efforts of new buildings and streets and plazas go together to make wonderful urban places to visit,” he says.
“Really, you could overdose on iconic buildings.”
