Melbourne & Australian Architecture Topics

Does anybody miss the Queen Victoria Hospital?

By Miles Lewis
Reader in architecture,
University of Melbourne

There was no need to have a bomb site for all those years

The plans for the Queen Victoria Hospital site give one a sense of deja vu for, like almost every major city redevelopment site, it represents an opportunity missed or fumbled. Of course, it is easy to criticise, and we must recognise that the Bracks government is picking up the detritus of the Kennett years, and will be for some time to come (along with not a little rubbish from the Cain and Kirner years as well).

It can reasonably be argued that the Queen Victoria Hospital should have preserved in virtually its entirety.

On the other hand, it can also be argued that preservation was too difficult, and that the hospital should have been completely demolished. However, certain facts are indisputable.

First, there was no case for preserving only a token building and a fence: it should have been all or nothing. Second, while the site was in public hands, a strip of land should have been preserved on the Swanston Street frontage as an extension of the State Library forecourt. Third, no demolition should have taken place until the redevelopment was ready to proceed. There was no need to have a bomb site for all those years. Indeed, had the buildings remained, a commercially viable use might have been found for them.

Now, however, the Government, the Melbourne City Council and the public are so desperate to resolve the issue that they, and we, will accept almost anything. There seems no reason there should not be a high-rise development somewhere on the site, but that does not mean total insensitivity elsewhere. We should still seek a setback on Swanston Street, and we should not accept the overshadowing of the Greek precinct in Lonsdale Street.

Our inability to decide what we want on a site is our worst failing. That was the problem with Federation Square.

Architects need a clear brief but, once they have met that brief, we should be very reluctant to interfere in their designs. Developers are in even more need of clarity. They must know, before they commit capital to a project, how much development will be allowed, and subject to what constraints. It is not their fault, but ours, when each of our major sites gets mired in controversy.

Not all sites are equally sensitive but, if we don't deal with those that are, most notably the old CUB site, then we will deserve what we get.

By Norman Day
Adjunct professor of architecture at RMIT and architecture writer for The Age

Without a vision, the city will become a nightmare

The Queen Vic development is yet another awkward step of piecemeal growth.

Any vision must include proposals for open space and vegetation. For example, what effect will the Queen Vic site's 2000 car parking spaces have on the city? At a rough guess, if they are cars of commuters, how gentle will the edges of the site be at 8.30am and 5.30pm each workday?

Do we have to commit to this when almost every large city is moving towards effective public transport?

Does the proposed open square behind the old hospital building work? Plans show two towers to the east of the square, so there goes the morning sunlight.

And what of the Athenian character of Lonsdale Street? Nothing seems to suggest it will be referred to in this new scheme.

Nothing should be demolished or built without a system that allows the city to change without inflicting poisonous injury on itself.

Without such a vision, the city will become a nightmare.

By Dimity Reed
Former professor of urban design,
RMIT.

Space for lifestyle homeware businesses is a clever move

The old Queen Victoria Hospital land seems to have been jinxed for some time by the god of important sites. It has been sold and resold, either too cheaply or too expensively time and again, and only one owner in the chain has ever made a buck from it. Its first sale provoked fury among women's groups because the hospital had been originally built with money contributed by women to a "shilling fund" to celebrate Queen Victoria's jubilee and to achieve a hospital for, and run by, women. To calm the storm, one building was left on the site and given back as the Women's Centre, and it has stood alone for near a decade on the Lonsdale Street edge of this vast and dismal block.

While the hospital operated there, Lonsdale Street was a vibrant Greek Precinct in the city. Families waiting for babies to be born shopped and ate along the strip and it was a place of some character. But when the hospital moved, the strip began a near death experience and it has been on a drip ever since.

As the saga dragged on, the City of Melbourne did a brave and wonderful thing: it bought the site for $38.5 million.

The city and Grocon's redevelopment of the Queen Vic land is based on a careful analysis of Melbourne's position in several areas. Central Melbourne now supplies only 7.5% of the retailing in the metropolitan area and, if that decline continues, the city's overall ability to attract both business and residents will be affected. So the supply of 35,000 square metres of space for those lifestyle homeware businesses that usually only locate in the middle to outer suburbs is a clever move.

By Kim Dovey
Associate professor and associate dean,
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Melbourne University

Aspects seem to have bypassed public planning

The final proposal for the Queen Victoria site will end a decade of blight and bring a certain relief. But is the mixture of commercial, residential and retail functions, with some minimal (if rather hidden) open space, the best we can expect on such a key site?

The proposal does show that we are at last learning crucial lessons about developing and maintaining the pedestrian network of the city. A commendable effort has been made to break the project down into smaller sites and provide access networks through the site, especially on the Swanston Street frontage. The proposed mixture and open space shows a concern to maximise urban vitality and street life.

However, if we want diversity, then why choose a single developer for an entire city block? To break the project down into different parts under single control can be a recipe for pseudo-diversity.

It is imperative that each building on the site be given to a different architect, and Swanston Street deserves more imagination than is evident in the drawings.

The proposal represents an incursion of corporate culture into this precinct. The attraction is the urban lifestyle. There is a rich mixture of restaurants, theatres and cultural amenities, which is in marked contrast to the high-rise, nine-to-five corporate character of the financial district.

Some very bulky buildings have been permitted on Russell and Lonsdale Streets, overwhelming the heritage building next door and shading Little Bourke Street in winter. These aspects seem to have bypassed the public planning process.

Urban projects inevitably signify the values and politics of each era. This project reflects a return to a more sensible yet boring era of compromise. An entire block under public control would have been an opportunity to do something memorable in the life of a great city. Instead, we see a return to private developers, who cannot be expected to deliver a public vision.