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Victorian Melbourne

Marvellous Melbourne: gold-rush money built the grandest Victorian streetscapes in the southern hemisphere.

In the 1880s Melbourne was one of the richest cities on earth, and it spent its gold money on architecture — 'Marvellous Melbourne', as the booster pamphlets called it. Italianate terraces with lace-like cast-iron verandas lined the inner suburbs, and the city crowned itself with an exhibition palace, grand theatres, and shopping arcades roofed in glass.

The 1890s crash froze much of it in amber, which is why so much survives. Today you can walk two 19th-century arcades in an afternoon, tour an 1868 mansion in its original gardens, and stand in the only surviving Great Hall of the 19th-century international exhibitions — all within the free tram zone or close by.

What to see

Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens
Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens — Built for the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition to designs by Joseph Reed, this is the grandest surviving exhibition hall of the 19th century and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its dome, cruciform Great Hall, and surrounding Carlton Gardens are pure boom-era confidence.
Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Princess Theatre
Princess Theatre — Opened in 1886 on Spring Street, the Princess is Melbourne's grandest 19th-century theatre, its Second Empire facade and opulent auditorium restored to full glory. It anchors the East End theatre district the Victorians built.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Block Arcade
Block Arcade — Cut through the block in 1891 to 1893, the Block is Melbourne's great Victorian shopping arcade: mosaic-tile floors, carved stone, and a soaring glass canopy modelled on Milan's Galleria. Come for coffee under the glass, exactly as Melburnians have since the 1890s.
Photo: Courtesy of Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Royal Arcade
Royal Arcade — Opened in 1869, Australia's oldest arcade runs between Bourke and Little Collins Streets beneath a high arched glass roof, guarded by the mythical figures Gog and Magog. The shopfronts keep their Victorian joinery and proportions.
Photo: Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Fitzroy boom-era terraces
Fitzroy boom-era terraces — Fitzroy holds Melbourne's finest terrace rows: double-storey Italianate houses of the 1870s and 80s with filigree cast-iron verandas, parapets, and party walls marching down whole streets. Royal Terrace on Nicholson Street shows the form at its most palatial.
Photo: Biatch at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Rippon Lea Estate
Rippon Lea Estate — An 1868 Italianate mansion at Elsternwick, built for merchant Frederick Sargood and kept by the National Trust with its Victorian pleasure gardens, lake, and fernery. Guided tours run through the polychrome-brick house and its original interiors.
Photo: Mike, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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