Here’s an interesting interview with David Thompson, whose Art Deco Buildings is a stunning blog documenting architecture in Melbourne and around the world. [via] ¶ Lonsdale House is currently being demolished. For shame.
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The Melbourne City Council on recent planning decisions:
The council has said it wanted to strengthen planning controls to protect the city against towers being approved by Planning Minister Justin Madden’s department and the state’s planning tribunal. [...] ¶ A report from council officers says the CBD’s small streets and lanes, “emblematic of the best of the Melbourne urban character”, are being damaged by decisions of the department and tribunal. The scale, grain and character of these valued city precincts is being undermined by a growing number of development proposals out of scale with these settings,” the report says.
This is the same Melbourne City Council that acceded to the demolition of Lonsdale House because it wants to sell the adjoining laneway to be turned into another generic shopping strip. Outrageous hypocrisy.
Guy Rundle on the importance of Lonsdale House:
What falls through the cracks are those single buildings that lack significance – such as a standard art deco (a refacing of a Victorian building) like Lonsdale House. ¶ The prima donna approach was a way of drawing a line, to stop a wholesale urban wreck. In recent years, the B-list buildings it couldn’t save have become more important, not less. Why? Because the nature of urban capital has changed. … There is no distinction between heritage and capital; now, heritage is capital. ¶ Thus the bizarre revival of Melbourne on the world stage. After decades of losing ground to Sydney, the place has become a magnet not only for tourism but a focus for global fashion, IT, media and more. Why? It’s not for Melbourne Central or QV, those identikit mid-west maulings.
It’s certainly not for wider delivery lanes.
Justin Madden reckons the Myer redevelopment “marrie[s] the significant heritage features of the site with contemporary urban architecture” — which, translated into reality, means we’re bulldozing the old building. Lonsdale House is an important art deco landmark, and its wonderful flagpole features on the cover of a new book on Melbourne’s deco buildings — yet the city council decided it has no heritage value worth protecting. What a disgrace.