Victoria - Melbourne - Swanston St.
Swanston Street, Melbourne

Captain Matthew Flinders stands next to the west side of St. Paul's Cathedral (see big link at bottom). "Beyond the Ocean of Existence," by Loretta Quinn in 1993, stands at the northeast corner of Flinders Lane. It has a stylized female angel on top. So she says.

The 1926 Nicholas Building is at 37 Swanston Street. Yes, I went out of order for the sake of captions. It's my website.

Burke & Wills were organized in Victoria (if you read my caption on the Victoria Street page), so they get a lot of representation in Melbourne. This statue to Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills is at the southeast corner of Collins Street.

The Art Deco 1932 Manchester Unity Building is catty-corner from that statue. The Manchester Unity Mutual Company started as the Independent Order of Oddfellows, who also had a building on my Victoria Street page. And yes, Victoria and Swanston intersect. It's a conspiracy.

Details from around the front entrance. I think the statues on both sides of the entrance are identical.

Council House 2, the second house of the City Council (of course), is in this green building just north of the old town hall (see big link at bottom). You can see two of the ways it's environmentally friendly: a set of wind turbines on top for energy, and movable side panels to provide shade and natural heating/cooling.

This installation came from Nauru in 1993. If you want to see it, it's at Bourke Street. Here's what the Nauruans call it: "Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Own Lunch: Batman, Swanston, and Hoddle." Lost in translation?

The Leviathan Building was a clothing emporium upon construction in 1913. Swanston House is to its left in the 1st photo.

Looking west down Bourke Street. I wonder how all those plastic hats affect streetcar performance. I wonder how they smell when burning from an electrical fire. I wonder if Bourke Street residents know that answer.

The poles supporting the tram wires at this intersection must date to construction of the system. The fanciful decorations on top answer the age-old question of whether pigs can fly. Oh, is it when pigs can fly? Whenever they're in Melbourne.

The 1860s Latham House, which started life as a hotel, and the 1922 Curtin House, northeast of the Little Bourke Street intersection. (Each alleyway is called the "Little" version of the street before.)

I didn't know it was this old when I saw it, but here's the 1848 John Knox Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria on the northwest corner of Little Lonsdale Street.

From there, and then again from the Old Melbourne Gaol (because it's the same building), this pyramid sits atop the Melbourne Central shopping centre.

The front (west face) of the State Library Victoria, born in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library.

Around the north side of the library.

Architectural details, ending with a face over the main door. Melbourne buildings and faces go together like pizza and faces.

From left to right (north to south), the first statue is Lt. Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe, one of the library's founders and namesake of the adjacent street. Then there's the 1889 St. George and the Dragon sculpture, moved from centre in 1907 to balance the last sculpture, that of Joan of Arc. (Why is she here? A gift from France, copying the gilded statue found there.) Finally, front and centre of the library is Sir Redmond Barry, the oldest statue at 1880.

You may have seen a bunch of lamps scattered throughout the State Library Victoria photos. They are known as "gasoliers" and date to 1891. Obviously, they originally operated with gas.
Flinders Street Railway Station
St. Paul's Cathedral
Town Hall
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
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