Saturday Magazine

23 Jul 2023

Saturday, 22nd July, 2023: Michael Veitch, Author, Heritage address for Open House Melbourne

Art, History, Interview, Joy, Joy 94.9, Joy Media, Media, Podcast, Saturday Magazine, Society & Culture

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Saturday, 22nd July, 2023: Michael Veitch, Author, Heritage address for Open House Melbourne

Fiona and Paul interview famed author, Michael Veitch, about his Heritage address for Open House Melbourne and the Heritage Council of Australia – July 31

Many of us today lament the mid-to-late destruction of Marvellous Melbourne, aka the ‘Vienna of the South’, when Melbourne actually was one of the truly great cities of the world. Such a shame we didn’t know it at the time. So much was indeed destroyed, but a good deal was saved. Some of the proposals, however, were quite bizarre, and many of them came within a hair’s breadth of going ahead, and if realised, would have altered Melbourne drastically.

Flinders Gate. Some of us may remember ‘Princes Gate’ incorporating the now-vanished Gas and Fuel Buildings, a concrete platform and laneway of underground shops that led down to the train platforms at the corner of Flinders and Swanston sts at the (now also vanished) Queens Bridge Station. It was actually part one of a much larger plan called ‘Flinders Gate’, involving the covering over the Jolimont Railway yards, the total demolition of Flinders St Station and another vast concrete paving, Tiananmen Square-style, all the way down the river to Queen St. It was knocked back by the planning committee by a single vote. And this was in 1974!
The ‘New’ Town Hall. By the 60’s, the Town Hall was regarded as old tired and filthy, and no longer dominated the skyline as it once had. It was therefore proposed that it be levelled, and relocated to take the place of that other Victorian-era eyesore, the Exhibition Buildings. This was seriously proposed and only voted down at the last minute.
The Plaza Obsession. In the late 1960s, the A&Z bank wanted to renew their headquarters located at what was then the Paris End of Collins st. Rather than simply build a new building, they became bewitched by a bizarre French Canadian town planner named Vincent Ponte who convinced them to buy the entire block and demolish everything, which they duly did. From here, everything would go underground in a series of subterranean passageways which would reach out under the city and connect other similar plazas. ANZ introduced Ponte to the Melbourne City Council who, for a time, ate out of his hand. Several, including Collins Place were built at the expense of some beautiful Victorian buildings, but when it was realised no one wanted to shop underground, and at night these tunnels became mugger and drug dealer alleys, they were stopped, along with several other projects in the planning stage. Had they done even a modicum of research, they would have found that Ponte’s realised plans in Montreal and Dallas had been a disaster.

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