Architecture of Melbourne

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 (buildings 150 metres or taller) in the city centre, the most of any city in the Southern Hemisphere.

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".^[1] Melbourne at this time was also second only to London as the largest and wealthiest city in the British Empire,^[2] and earned the still-quoted moniker "Marvellous Melbourne", coined by English journalist George Augustus Sala while visiting in 1885.^[3] 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).^[4] Suburban development of detached houses continued, in the new red brick Federation style. After the restrictions of WW1, 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 WW1, 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 WW2 in 1940.

The post World War 2 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.^[5] 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,^[6] extensive use of polychrome brickwork^[7] and a regional variation of the boom-style Victorian Italianate Filigree (decorative cast iron) terrace houses featuring excessively high and ornamented parapets^[8] from the High Victorian period and a residential style pioneered by Robin Boyd and Roy Grounds known as the post-war Melbourne regional style.^[9] These attributes are rare elsewhere.