Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

Arcade, arch, architecture, blind tracery, Brunelleschi, competition, cupola, dome, Edwardian Free Style, false machiolation, French Renaissance, HPC Ashworth, James Fawcett, Melbourne, neo-Romanesque, parapet, public building, railway station, Railways Department, Romanesque Revival, The Duomo, VIC, Victoria.

A view of Flinders Street Station, located at the intersection of Flinders Street and Swanston Street in Melbourne’s CBD. Flinders Street station was designed by architects James Fawcett and HCP Ashworth, who won a competition to re-design the station in 1899. Building commenced in 1900 and was completed in 1910. The architecture is often described as "Edwardian Free Style", which suggests a design featuring an eclectic mix of different architectural elements without favouring any particular style from the past (see Richard Apperly, Robert Irving, Peter Reynolds, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present, North Ryde, Angus & Robertson, 1989, p.139). However, the station architects described their design as “French Renaissance in a free manner”, which suggests rather that they did start with a particular Renaissance style in mind, into which they incorporated a number of other elements and influences, such as Art Nouveau (See the Victorian Heritage Database report at: http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/#detail_places;752). The exterior of the station is constructed in red brick with yellow pressed cement decoration, while the interior also has a number of pressed metal features. A large dome, reminiscent of Brunelleschi’s fifteenth-century addition to The Duomo in Florence, adorns the roof of the station and is flanked on either side by a smaller cupola.

McEwan, Joanne

17 March 2012

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2x Digital Photograph