Block Arcade, Melbourne

The Block Arcade

From top: Block Arcade looking south, Collins Street façade
Location	Victoria, Australia
Coordinates	37°48′57″S 144°57′52″E / 37.81583°S 144.96444°E / -37.81583; 144.96444
Address	282 Collins Street, Melbourne
Opening date	1892
Management	Allard Shelton Pty Ltd
Owner	Block Arcade Melbourne Pty Ltd
No. of floors	5
Website	theblock.com.au
Victorian Heritage Register
Official name	Block Arcade
Type	State Registered Place
Designated	October 9, 1974
Reference no.	H0032[1]
Heritage Overlay number	HO596[1]

The Block Arcade is a historic shopping arcade in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.^[2] Constructed between 1891 and 1893, it is considered one of the late Victorian era's finest shopping arcades and ranks among Melbourne's most popular tourist attractions.

Designed by architects Twentyman & Askew, the Block is one of Melbourne's most richly decorated interior spaces, replete with mosaic tiled flooring, glass canopy supported in cast and wrought iron, and tall, elaborate timber shop fronts. The arcade is L-shaped with an octagonal rotunda at the corner, connecting Collins Street at the south end to Elizabeth Street on the west. On the north side, the arcade connects to Block Place, a covered pedestrian lane that leads to Little Collins Street, opposite Melbourne's oldest shopping arcade, the Royal Arcade. The Block Arcade's six-storey external façades on both Collins and Elizabeth streets are some of Australia's best surviving examples of Victorian architecture in the Mannerist style.

The arcade takes its name from the practice of "doing the block": dressing fashionably and promenading the section of Collins Street between Elizabeth and Swanston streets. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.^[2]