Open House Melbourne

The last weekend of July is usually Open House Melbourne, so I did the rounds of places normally closed to the public.

First off, the underground Russell Place electrical substation.

Complete with mercury arc rectifiers.

Hamer Hall, which was mid renovation.

The former Land Titles Office on Queen Street.

Toured the back of house areas of the State Library of Victoria.

A rooftop garden at 278 Flinders Lane.

The Myer Mural Hall.

Melbourne’s first skyscraper – ICI House.

Up to the top of 50 Lonsdale Street.

And down into the Royal Melbourne Hospital steam tunnels.

Trains and trams

One morning I was on my way to work, and found something odd – a V/Line train being pushed by a suburban electric train!

The V/Line train had run out of fuel at Footscray, so to keep things moving in the lead up to morning peak, it was pushed out of the way by the first train behind.

I found another public transport oddity down at Appleton Dock – a tram sitting on the back of a truck.

The Bombardier-built Flexity tram had just arrived from Germany by sea, and was ready to head for Adelaide to run on the Glenelg line.

But an everyday sight back in 2011 was ticket machines onboard Melbourne trams.

Removed following the decommissioning of the Metcard ticketing system in December 2012, it was originally planned to replace them with Myki machines, but the idea was abandoned in 2011.

Another then-unremarkable view was this one from Wurundjeri Way looking back towards Southern Cross Station.

A pair of office towers now occupy the western roof of Southern Cross Station, the Regional Rail Link tracks now occupy the roadside, and the skyline behind is full of new apartment towers.

Abandonment

A forgettable building in the Melbourne CBD is 405 Bourke Street. Launched back in 2007 as ‘The Foundry’, by 2011 the shopping centre had been boarded up, the original developer having gone into liquidation.

But a decade later things have changed – a new 43 storey tall office development has been built on the site, cantilevered 10 metres over the heritage listed building.

Another unremarkable building was the last remaining part of the West Gate Bridge toll plaza – the abandoned VicRoads control room in Port Melbourne.

Located next door to the tensile membrane roofed service station.

The site had just been sold to a developer, with demolition commencing a few months later.

Warehouses now occupy the site.

Finally, another abandoned site I visited this month was the former Gilbertson’s Meatworks in Altona North.

Empty for years, the site was finally cleared in 2012, and rezoned for residential development – with ‘Haven’ by Stockland and ‘The Fabric’ by Mirvac both under construction today.

And new construction

In 2011 demolition was well underway at the former Myer store on Lonsdale Street.

The facade was still there.

But a wall of scaffolding was on the way up.

Ready to support the building.

While the guts were ripped out of the middle.

Emporium Melbourne was then built on the site, opening to shoppers in 2014.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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First stop – the MIRRAT terminal at Webb Dock.

Where every car in Victoria is now unloaded.

Up to the top of the Melbourne GPO, at the DesignInc architecture studio.

Emporium Melbourne, riding a 25 tonne truck hoist 12 metres down into the basement.

And then up to the fifth floor, to see the empty void behind the Myer Lonsdale Street store facade.

Watching passing trains from the ‘Signal’ youth arts centre.

And finally – Australia 108, where a room full of diesel powered fire water pumps occupy level 42.

More photos still to some – though I wonder how long it will take me to upload them!

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