Laneway

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Melbourne laneways are famous for its cobbled bluestone laneways. 
If we think of the bluestone in Melbourne, we may first think of the famous cobbled laneways intersecting the urban grid.
Initially, these laneways were used for the collection of night soil – human excrement collected at night from buckets or privies – and they are still useful routes for collecting rubbish and recycling bins. But laneways are increasingly being reclaimed as lively strips for cafes, bars, restaurants and galleries in the city, or re-made as <a href="https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/city-of-melbourne-unveils-first-green-laneway/" target="_blank">gardens</a> in the suburbs.
Laneways are an important part of Melbourne’s heritage infrastructure, protected by legislation and design guides. And they are often defended by enthusiasts whenever a local council threatens to remove the bluestones or pave them over with asphalt.
The other thing we might think of when it comes to bluestone in Melbourne are landmark buildings such as Pentridge Prison (still known affectionately as the “bluestone college”) and the Old Melbourne Gaol in Russell St.
Then there is the more elegant gothic style of St Patrick’s Cathedral, or the brutal modernism of the National Gallery of Victoria. Several blocks further down St Kilda Road are the grand Victoria Barracks, festooned with gorgeous crimson Boston Ivy in autumn.
Deep bluestone foundations also underpin some of the city’s most famous sandstone buildings: the Victorian Parliament, the Treasury, the Town Hall and the Supreme Court.
These dark grey stones that line and frame its streets and buildings are an important feature of Melbourne’s urban identity. Here’s how it began.
From furious beginnings
The formations of bluestone are paradoxically both fast and slow, and begin with explosions of fire and rock.
In successive periods of <a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/website/melbournemuseum/discoverycentre/600-million-years/timeline/quaternary/western-district-volcanoes/index" target="_blank">volcanic activity</a> to the north and south-west of Melbourne (some from 4.5 million years ago, some as recent as 10,000 years ago), rocks and boulders were thrown up as flaming projectiles or poured out of volcanoes as molten lava.
From these furious beginnings, basalt settles into the heavy dark stones we now associate with stability and endurance.
But the consistency of bluestone varies widely, depending on how it was formed. When it cools slowly, it’s hard and smooth, with barely a flaw, or at most a delicate thread of tiny bubbles. This is the highest grade stone, used for smooth surfaces such as hearthstones and front-facing walls.
But if a flying boulder lands in water, it cools more rapidly, so pockets of gas produce bubbles, even sometimes a honey-comb effect.
The quality, colour and consistency of bluestone used in Melbourne also varies according to the quarries from which it’s sourced; or whether it comes from Australia or overseas.
Uses in Indigenous culture
Geological time is almost beyond our reckoning, though Indigenous culture and history helps us read these formations on a human scale. A stone axe-head, found deep beneath layers of volcanic ash at <a href="http://www.worngundidj.org.au/?q=tower-hill/about-reserve">Tower Hill</a>, suggests Indigenous people would have witnessed some of the volcanic activity on this site.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281499/original/file-20190627-76705-1etkjff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281499/original/file-20190627-76705-1etkjff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
A sketch from 1837 showing The Falls, a stretch of bluestone crossing the Yarra that acted as a natural bridge. (Source: State Library of Victoria)<a class="source" href="http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=295764.xml&amp;dvs=1561599813270~465&amp;locale=en_US&amp;search_terms=&amp;adjacency=&amp;VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&amp;DELIVERY_RULE_ID=4&amp;divType=&amp;usePid1=true&amp;usePid2=true"> </a>
Important traces of Indigenous knowledge and use of bluestone have also been discovered throughout Melbourne and elsewhere in Victoria.
For instance, bluestone was used for an eel trap system carbon-dated to 6,600 years old, developed near Lake Condah in the sacred <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/budj-bim" target="_blank">Budj Bim</a> landscape.
There’s also the natural basalt-bluestone ledge across the Yarra river — known as “<a href="https://overland.org.au/2012/07/melbourne-from-the-falls/" target="_blank">The Falls</a>” — which separated fresh and salt water. It was used as a meeting place for different tribal groups, but was removed in the 1880s.
And there are basalt stones arranged as astronomical markers at <a href="https://www3.astronomicalheritage.net/index.php/show-entity?identity=15&amp;idsubentity=1" target="_blank">Wurdi Youang</a>, near Lara.
Settler buildings
Bluestone was the obvious choice <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/operating-procedure-bluestone.pdf" target="_blank">for construction</a> when Melbourne was a booming gold-rush city in the 1850s. It was cheap and plentiful, and there was convict labor to cut and haul its heavy weight.
But as early as the 1880s, bluestone had become unfashionable, perceived as too dark, somber and forbidding.
Bluestone has a somber, dark appearance – an appropriate material for the Old Melbourne Gaol.
Bluestone buildings were increasingly lightened with sandstone or white stucco edges and borders, while granite and sandstone became the stones of choice for grand public buildings.
Now, bluestone is prized again for its heritage value. But “heritage” is always a movable category, susceptible to changes in both fashion and feeling about the past.
There is something compelling about the way stone helps us think about time, history and change. As Jeffrey Jerome Cohen <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt155jmth" target="_blank">observes</a>:
<blockquote>
to lay hand upon stone is to press against time in material form.
</blockquote>
Bluestone is prized today for its markers of history
In my own work <a href="https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/129561/Bluestone.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y" target="_blank">researching bluestone</a>, I’m collecting more recent personal narratives about this stone.
Many Melburnians have powerful stories about the way its characteristic square “pitchers” and long rectangular building blocks are bought and sold, collected and dispersed, recycled or moved from one site to another, from public buildings to suburban gardens and makeshift walls. It’s as if the citizens were playing a mysterious, long-range collective game of Lego.
 
Some of the most prized stones are those that seem to bear the ancient marks of wheels, or of convict labor, whether in the form of initials and arrows chiselled into the stone, or the more mundane markers of manual work.
Gardeners, builders and diggers of cellars struggle with the large “floaters” under old houses and in the gardens in the north and western suburbs, straining to lever them from the black sticky clay of the <a href="http://vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/soil_vic_contenders_black_vertosol">Merri Creek soil</a>, famously used as the basis of the MCG cricket pitch.
Melbourne’s bluestone history is not just geological and cultural: it is also an emotional one, as we constantly redefine our relationship with this distinctive stone.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118755/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;">
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/stephanie-trigg-142520" target="_blank">Stephanie Trigg</a>, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-melbourne-722" target="_blank">University of Melbourne</a>
This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-molten-lava-to-cobbled-laneways-how-bluestone-shaped-melbournes-identity-118755" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

From molten lava to cobbled laneways, how bluestone shaped Melbourne: Stephanie Trigg

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Owner occupiers and investors have the chance to secure a rare laneway retail asset in their heart of the Melbourne CBD.
Colliers International’s Chris Ling, Oliver Hay and Anthony Kirwan have been appointed to sell 22 Russell Place by international expressions of interest.
Nestled between Bourke Street and Little Collins Street in the CBD’s sought after retail precinct, the prime retail asset is situated on the ground floor of a nine-storey mixed-use complex.
Spanning 53 sqm of NLA, the property benefits from high ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling glazed shopfront.
“The location of the property is second to none, being in one of Melbourne’s signature laneways Russell Place,” Mr Ling said.
“This rare opportunity is perfectly timed, being offered with vacant possession, as there is flexibility for owner occupiers and investors to capitalise on the strong rental growth and the variety of uses the premises offers.”
“Strategically the property has immediate access to the Bourke Street tram supers-stop at the front doorstep as well as Melbourne Central and Parliament Train Stations. The area will also benefit from the upcoming State Library Metro Station,” he said.
“Opportunities of this kind are highly sought-after in Melbourne CBD and are rare as such, we are expecting a competitive contest when this property hits the market next week.”
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Rare Russell Place, Melbourne laneway asset offered to market

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Jeff Xu's Golden Age Group has put to market the freestanding McKillop House on one of Melbourne’s laneways.
CBRE has the listing of the 12-14 McKillop Street property, located between Little Collins Street and Bourke Street.
It comprises a freestanding, five level Manhattan-style building over 1706 square metres featuring bespoke floors of 250 square metres and large industrial style windows.
The 361 square metre corner site has 22 metres frontage ideal for a diversity of uses including retail, hospitality, office, hotel and/or residential.
The property will be auctioned October 12 at 12.30pm on site, next door to the ISPT-Brookfield Foundry project.
It last sold at $11.55 million in 2015.
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2018/8/24/12-14%20Mckillop%20Street.jpg" alt="">
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Jeff Xu lists Melbourne laneway holding McKillop House

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An unnamed 59 square metre lane in the Melbourne CBD had been sold for $600,000.
Its recent offering attracted interest from more than 100 potential buyers, the Herald Sun reported.
The<a href="https://www.realcommercial.com.au/property-land+development-vic-melbourne-502793878" target="_blank"> unnamed lane</a> runs off another laneway between Little Bourke and Lonsdale Streets.
Its future remains a mystery.
It was speculated during its selling campaign that the rare 59 square metre piece of CBD land could be transformed into a retail space, car parking, or a staple of Melbourne’s colourful lanes: a trendy, hard-to-find bar.
The property is zoned Capital City Zone 1 (CCZ1) allowing for a variety of uses including retail/hospitality, office and residential in a high foot traffic precinct.
Peter Lechte’s family had owned the laneway for 70 years until its sale through Colliers International Victoria selling agent Chris Ling.
The rare offering, that sits just off Niagara Lane, sold two weeks before its expressions of interest campaign was due to close.
The property had belonged to the Lechtes since 1948, when Alan Lechte bought it along with the nearby St Francis Hotel and several warehouses.
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Nameless Melbourne CBD lane sold with future use a mystery

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A Redfern laneway that was nameless on maps for more than 130 years has been named after a 19th century local mum and pioneer businesswoman who is thought to be Australia’s first female builder in Sydney.
The City of Sydney has named the narrow laneway running parallel to Pitt Street between Turner and Redfern streets as Glover Lane in honour of Anne Glover and her family.
Members of the Glover family were builders who lived and worked in the area in the late 19th century.
Following the death of John, her husband, Anne led the family business to help shape the historic suburb.
The Glovers built the row of terraces they called Victoria Terrace in Pitt Street, Redfern, with the help of sub-contractors in 1879.
Newspaper records from November that year show a pair of brand new, six-roomed houses on Pitt Street advertised for lease by a company called “Mrs Glover and Sons”.
"Anne Glover was building beautiful homes that still stand as a monument to a woman ahead of her time,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.
“It is only fitting that we name the laneway after her and her hardworking family.”
Anne Glover, the family matriarch, was widowed in 1863, but from 1873 through to 1884 she ran a building firm based in Waterloo and Redfern with two sons, David and Thomas.
"The proposed naming commemorates a local firm and female empowerment in a male dominated trade," council papers said. 
Master Builder Association’s NSW’s Executive Director, Brian Seidler, told 2GB's Ross Greenwood Small Business Show that Anne Glover was a trailblazer for women in an industry which needed women over the next 18 months building boom as "the great untapped resource."
“While we can’t definitively confirm Anne Glover as the first female builder in Australia, she was certainly one of the very first,” Mr Seidler said.
Anne Glover (nee Stinson or Stevenson) arrived in Australia as an unmarried 22-year-old housekeeper aboard the Garrow from Ireland in 1839. 
The Glovers lived and worked on Botany Road, Waterloo, near Raglan Street, from 1873 to 1884, then moved to 95 Victoria Terrace on Pitt Street.
Anne Glover died aged 73 in 1888.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Glover Lane, Redfern named after Sydney's first female builder

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Urban.com.au has highlighted Hosier Lane <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/hosier-lane-off-the-boil">more than enough times</a> and fairly so, with the tourist attraction never short on something new to gaze upon.

Along with a new retail/cafe space as part of the 167 Flinders Lane redevelopment, new artworks continue to appear in the area. Enjoy the pictures.
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melbournee12

Hosier Lane in the shadows of 2015

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Melbourne's retail core has seen a notable resurgence of late, with the significant redevelopments of Myer, David Jones, The Emporium, The Strand and GPO. The currently under construction St. Collins Lane project will see additional shoppers returning to the CBD area in a big way.

While the big brands provide incentive enough for shoppers to swarm the CBD, shoppers and people are also drawn in by the experience gained by visiting Melbourne's laneway and coffee culture which provides an altogether different vibe compared to the traditional mall. What is so great about shopping in Melbourne heart is that shortly enough any individual could will be able to walk from Flinders Street through to Lonsdale Street on this 'retail/social/cultural highway' of sorts.

Think of it as another north-south aligned Elizabeth Street or Russell Street, the major difference being of course that it's a pedestrian thoroughfare full of character - of what makes Melbourne great!

The following photo tour sees me exploring Melbourne's laneways within the retail core of the city, beginning at Degraves Street, walking through Centre Place whilst the Block Arcade and Royal Arcade follow. Exploring the multiple laneways along Little Collins Street, Postal Lane to Little Bourke Street, with Melbourne Central and Little Lonsdale Street rounding out the tour. Please enjoy.
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Exploring Melbourne's retail and laneway spine

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Call this an opinion piece, a policy piece, a design piece, and environment piece... it doesn't particularly matter what category it falls under.  What does matter is the completely inept finish and total lack of respect shown to the surrounds in the image above.

For readers unaware, one of Melbourne's unheralded gems can be found mid block and bound by Elizabeth, La Trobe, Queen and Little Lonsdale.  This historic red brick warehouse precinct is exemplary and provides a genuine glimpse into Melbourne's past, yet with the most recent incursion of development into the area, concerning signs have emerged that the human scale and character of the area is being eroded.

<a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/Img_4301.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Morning light enhances a stunning view"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="870" src="/sites/urbanmelbourne.info/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/Img_4301.jpg?itok=1derKPZk" title="Morning light enhances a stunning view" width="580"></a>

<a href="http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/arts-and-entertainment/article/guildford-lane-art-precinct" target="_blank">Broadsheet</a> describes the area's heart, Guildford Lane (symptomatic of the entire area) as follows:

<blockquote>
Guildford Lane is a collection of two-story buildings reminiscent of the Melbourne of yore with a sprinkling of the urban contemporary added for good measure. Quaint buildings decorated with haphazard graffiti offer very little indication of visual arts treasures that hide behind their red-brick facade. Towering skyscrapers menace overhead as an ode to the varying layers of history – past and present – that reside there. It’s almost as though some inception-style architect has manufactured the view. Old-world it may be, but it is also fast becoming the nucleus for Melbourne’s visual arts. Here’s a rundown of the galleries you may encounter should you decide to take a trip down this charming side street.
</blockquote>

I feel a skerrick of discomfort highlighting the impending plight of this area over others such as The Palace redevelopment or neighbouring Windsor Hotel, yet I do traverse the are quite often; as much a relaxing break from the excesses of the CBD as a shortcut from A to B.  Having said that I am pro development so readers may argue an element of hypocrisy is present in this article - regardless this one precast wall has raised my ire, for it may be representative if what is in store.

Let's explore why the monotone precast street level facade located to the rear of the recently finished Melbourne Sky development is totally abysmal.  I'd contend development in this area is reasonable given it's bound to the perimeter of the block, leaving the heart of the precinct unblemished - but this is no reason to deliver half-arsed public realm outcomes in such a sensitive area.  Externals to both Little Lonsdale and La Trobe are entitled to present in a modern manner, yet the inward facing (particularly street level) facades should respect their surrounds - surely a reasonable assumption?

Not only is there a total lack of respect relative to the immediate surrounds via a black precast wall, there's also total inactivation and a complete lack of imagination - it is in every way disappointing!  

So who can be attributed with this blunder?  From the outside it seems an abject failure in planning for ultimate responsibility and enforcement lies here.  Architects and developers do what they do, yet both local and state planning bodies missed a trick here by not requesting the rear of Melbourne Sky be improved.  At the very least a simple wrap of recycled brickwork over the site's precast derriere facing Sutherland Street and McLean Alley would have been a cheap, innocuous outcome that would have at least attempted to meld with its heritage surrounds.

<a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/Image1_51.jpg" rel="gallery-all" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" title="Intended art wall. Image © Rothe Lowman"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="343" src="/sites/urbanmelbourne.info/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/Image1_51.jpg?itok=E9fnFBCo" title="Intended art wall. Image © Rothe Lowman" width="580"></a>

Am I overreacting to this one precast wall - possibly, but consider the four upcoming developments fronting La Trobe Street;  <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/buildings/eporo-tower-279-la-trobe-street-melbourne" target="_blank">Eporo Tower</a>, <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/buildings/the-carlson-321-la-trobe-street-melbourne" target="_blank">321 La Trobe Street</a>, <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/buildings/la-trobe-tower-323-la-trobe-street-melbourne" target="_blank">323 La Trobe Street </a>and <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/projects/paragon-318-queen-street-melbourne?page=9" target="_blank">Celtic Tower</a> all also back onto the warehouse precinct.  Granted early designs for 321 La Trobe Street included an art wall at the sites rear (seen above), but the prospect of having the finer grain of this precinct repeatedly punctuated by average planning and even worst street level facades is evidently very real.  

Areas such as this intricate warehouse precinct are not a dime a dozen through Melbourne's CBD and therefore are worthy of respect and much thought when approving new developments within its realm.  Based on the initial outcome, it can only get better...

 

Not familiar with the area?  Open the images below to gain a greater understanding of the precinct
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