Cafe at GPO

My world Tuesday

Throw

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The Argus Building

The Argus building, constructed in 1926 on the corner of La Trobe and Elizabeth streets, is classified by the National Trust and is on the Victorian Heritage Register of Heritage Victoria. In 1991, an innovative office building was built next door and named The Argus Centre, an award winning building by Nonda Katsalidis. In 2004 La Trobe University bought the site of the old Argus building with the intention to redevelop and house legal and business schools in the building, as well as a ground floor shopping precinct.

Outdoor Wednesday

Way to advertising in the city

Tuesday My World

Advertising on the road

Art on Building

At 247-249 Collin Street is Newspaper House. When you look up, you will see a beautiful glittering mosaic on the building's facade.

The Newspaper House mosaic was designed by Napier Waller in 1932. Waller was the leading neo-classical mural painter of the period. The mosaic was commissioned as part of a new facade for the original 1884 building. The new facade was designed by architects Stephenson & Meldrum for the Herald and Weekly Times Limited, who had recently acquired building. The theme of the mosaic was suggested by Mr. Theodore Fink, a director of the company, with the text, "Ill put a girdle round about the earth" comes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

It is located at first floor level and is affixed to slate panels fixed to the brickwork with copper dowels. It is in three sections divided by two windows. There are only two other mosaics by Napier Waller, who studied, lived and worked inMelbourne - one in Temple Court, Collins Street and the other at Monash House, William Street.

Tuesday My World

The mint

The Melbourne Mint, in Melbourne, Australia, was a branch of the British Royal Mint. Until 1916 it minted only gold sovereigns, and all Australian coins between 1927 and 1967. It is now the home of the Marriage Registry and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, and has been leased to the private sector since 2001.

The former Royal Mint is located on the corner of William and Latrobe Streets (280-318 William Street and 387-429 Latrobe Street) and is of architectural significance as one of the most impressive 19th century government buildings in Victoria, and one of few Australian buildings in the true Renaissance revival style, and a virtual copy of the Raphaels Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli in Rome (1515).

The mint was built between 1869 and 1872 to the designs of architect J.J Clark whose other notable works included the Old Treasury Building, Melbourne

Along Flinder Street

Regent Theatre

The Regent Theatre in Melbourne has had four phases in its existence. It was initially built as a grand picture palace for Frank Thring Senior's Hoyts cinema chain. The design by Cedric H. Ballantyne was not intended as high art but as a place to evoke fantastic faraway times and places to which anyone could escape for the price of a ticket. As such it has endeared itself to several generations of Melbournians.

The Regent opened on 15 March 1929 and in the manner of grand picture palaces of the time was designed for a mixture of film and live entertainment including a Wurlitzer organ. The Plaza Ballroom underneath had been redesigned to cater for the new talking pictures and opened later the same year.

The Regent Mark I ended abruptly with a disastrous fire on 28 April 1945 which completely destroyed the auditorium. Remarkably, the Plaza was hardly damaged and with some sealing work was able to reopen soon afterwards.

The decision was made to rebuild the Regent. Some designs were changed but the spirit of the original building was maintained and despite the austerity of the times the Regent Mark  II was reopened on 16 December 1947. The organ was replaced and again the regent could be marketed as 'The Palace of Dreams'. However the advent of television and changing public tastes during the 1960s were inevitably tolling the death knell of the great picture palaces around Australia. Numbers of adaptations were made - the Plaza briefly became a Cinerama cinema but by 1970 both the Regent and the Plaza were closed and all the furniture and fittings auctioned off.

Then began a period when the deserted Regent became the centre of public debate. it had been bought by the Melbourne City Council who had intended to demolish it to create (or enlarge) a city square. However many Melbournians wanted this piece of Melbourne's heritage to be maintained. Numbers of groups became involved including building unions who placed a 'green ban' on its demolition. Various uses for the building were mooted but in 1993 the State Government and Melbourne City Council announced it would be rebuilt as a theatre.

The newly refurbished theatre suitable for major theatre productions was reopened on 19 August 1996 with the Plaza refurbished as a ballroom. It is the Regent Mark III which now stands in Collins Street. It retains much of its original character, and appropriately enough also has a Wurlitzer organ Mark III.

Click this link see :  the detailed information on the organ at the Regent Theatre

Princess Piggy visits Burke Street Mall

The Piggy Bank Appeal is the biggest annual fundraiser for Very Special Kids which aims to raise over $1 million to support families of children with life-threatening illnesses. The Appeal runs throughout September with businesses, community groups and whole towns getting together to organise activities which raise money for this unique Victorian organization.

Activities are often centred around a visit from one of the five giant (700kg) piggy banks. The piggy banks: Penelope, Percy, Princess, Patrick and George drive throughout Melbourne and Victoria. They are accompanied by a wonderful group of volunteers, visiting hundreds of towns and cities to collect donations, sell merchandise and distribute information about Very Special Kids. The 2009 Piggy Bank Appeal raised $968,000 and They're aiming to raise even more during the 2010 Piggy Bank Appeal.

The 13th annual Piggy Bank Appeal runs from Friday 3 to Sunday 26 September 2010. To find out more visit : 2010 Piggy Bank Appeal

See city from the bus

Wordless Wednesday

The meeting point : Architectural Fragment

By Petrus Spronk
Bluestone sculpture called " Architectural Fragment " 1992
Corner of Swanston and La Trobe Streets

Born in Holland, Petrus Spronk immigrated to Australia in 1957 and trained as a ceramicist and sculptor in South Australia. He was commissioned to undertake Architectural Fragment for the Swanston Street Walk Public Art Project in 1992, and it was unveiled the following year.

Sited outside the State Library of Victoria, the pyramidal, Port Fairy bluestone sculpture represents a fragment of the library emerging from the pavement as an archaeological artefact might. It has been conceived to engage with its environment, visually connecting to its surroundings through both form and material.

Spronk's intention was to create a dialogue of sorts between art, history and place. His inspiration was Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem 'Ozymandias', which speaks of the fragile and transient nature of all that is human. Quoting from the poem, the pedestal reads: 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my work you Mighty, and despair.' Architectural Fragment is a Pythagorean triangle, which expresses a strong association with the geometry of ancient Greece. Like a fallen classical monument, it reflects the past and alludes to the transience of the present.

The Pathfinder ( Aka The Hammer Thrower )

By John Edward Robinson

Bronze sculpture, 1974: Queen Victoria Gardens

Artist John Robinson has a long history with Australia. Born in London in 1935, he came to Australia briefly during the war as a child evacuated to escape the German bombing of London. He returned in 1952, living on the land in South Australia, which is where he rediscovered his early talent for sculpture. Returning to England in 1969, he devoted himself to sculpture full time. Robinson’s reputation as a figurative sculptor grew quickly.

In 1973, the City of London commissioned his Hammer Thrower. In 1974, he began to focus on more symbolic forms. Robinson’s major commissions include four sculptures for the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Gymnast for the New Olympic Museum, Lausanne, and The Pathfinder and Water Children, now with the City of Melbourne.

Mining giant Conzinc Riotinto (now known as Rio Tinto) commissioned Robinson’s The Pathfinder, which they planned to install in their proposed new building. When the building failed to go ahead, the ‘dynamic’ sculpture of the hammer thrower in action was placed on long-term loan with the City of Melbourne, which sited the bronze in the Queen Victoria Gardens.

The hammer held by the figure has been stolen several times and duly returned or replaced by another. Lord Mayor Councillor Whalley unveiled The Pathfinder in April 1974.

Block Place

Block Place is a street in Melbourne, Victoria. 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.

Block Place is a pedestrian only laneway that is trendy and popular with both Melbourne locals and tourists for its intimate alfresco cafes close to the shopping heart of Melbourne it is crowded with cafes and shops in a number of pre-war buildings. Cafe Segovia is one of a popular lunch destination and a popular record store is located in underground basements.

Nice morning in the sun

View from the back of Melbourne Aquarium

Headwear for men

I like the window display of this hat shop. They love to change the display. The location is just next to Flinder Station but you have to look down a little bit. Normally, people just walks passed ( get in / out the station ). May be that's why they have to keep people attention by often changed the display.

Tuesday my world

The look of Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Tim Burton: The Exhibition is still on at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image ( ACMI ) till Sunday 10-Oct-10. The exhibition is all about Tracing Burton’s visual imagination from his earliest childhood drawings through his mature work in film, the exhibition Tim Burton: The Exhibition brings together over 700 examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, moving-image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera, and includes an extensive film series spanning his 27-year career.

The exhibition follows the course of Burton’s career, with childhood ephemera, juvenilia, and amateur short films from his youth in Burbank, California; cartoons and drawings from his time at California Institute of the Arts; and examples of his first professional work at The Walt Disney Studios.

Theme day : Bright colors > Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Chair on Swanton

Resting Place 

By Bronwyn Snow 

Steel and jarrah seat, 1994 

Cnr Swanston & Little Lonsdale Street

Bronwyn Snow’s Resting Place is a sculpture that combines aesthetics and function. Commissioned through the City of Melbourne’s Percent for Art Program, this double-sided seat of steel and jarrah offers the urban flâneur a place to rest, take stock and take in the urban environment. The decorative elements of the seat include two serpents – traditionally a symbol of healing, rebirth and female power – towering sunflowers, which watch over the seated, and ivy. Snow claims of the work that it is ‘a stopping point, a resting place for the weary spiritual traveller’.

outdoor wednesday and wednesday seapia scenes

The Century Building

The Century Building (1938-40) is Marcus Barlow’s vertical Streamlined Moderne updating of his Modern Gothic Manchester Building on the next corner completed 6 years earlier.

With its abstracted corner tower, uninterrupted vertical fins and boldly horizontal and stepping streamlined canopy (the soffit is particularly notable), the limit-height Century Building is smartly Moderne. Common to both buildings, however, was the external cladding material: faience-glazed terracotta tiles, which Barlow used frequently as they provided a permanent and impervious finish. Wunderlich Limited, producers of faience, used the Century Buiilding in their advertisements, saying of it: ‘it gives a permanent freshness and sparkle to this fine building. Window spandrels are in hand moulded terracotta glazed neutral grey to achieve an arresting architectural contrast’.

Better view

Public Metal Art on Elizabeth street. For adults, we just have a look but for kids, they can have fun.. they jump up and down on that stone. But I got no ideas about this public art .