This article examines the building height limit debate in Melbourne, Australia, in the early twentieth century. At issue was whether the city should modernize according to beaux arts planning principles or adopt skyscraper urbanism, which would require raising the city’s building height limit. Skyscraper opponents looked to Paris as a model for growth; skyscraper advocates favored New York. The debate shows the importance of ideal cultural landscapes—Paris and New York—in the imagining and shaping of Melbourne throughout the twentieth century. It also highlights the multiple meanings and expressions of modernity and progress within city contexts.
In this context urbanism conflates two traditional meanings: (1) the morphology of cities and (2) their social and cultural landscapes-Louis Wirth’s "way of life" definition. (As Jane Jacobs showed, physical form and way of life are tightly bound.) Robert A. Beauregard, "Urbanism," in Robert W. Caves, ed., Encyclopedia of the City (London: Routledge, 2005), 501-2.
2.
John Fleming, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner , The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture ( Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1981 ), 299.
3.
Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History (Boston: Bulfinch, 1991), 280; Keith D. Revell, "Law Makes Order: The Search for Ensemble in the Skyscraper City, 1890-1930," in Roberta Moudry, ed., The American Skyscraper: Cultural Histories (New York: Cambridge, 2005), 39-40; Michael Holleran, "Boston’s ‘Sacred Skyline’: From Prohibiting to Sculpting Skyscrapers," Journal of Urban History 22 (1996): 554.
4.
Holleran, "Boston’s ‘Sacred Skyline,’"558-59; Thomas Bender, The Unfinished City: New York and the Metropolitan Idea ( New York: New York University Press, 2007), 33.
5.
Revell, "Law Makes Order,"42.
6.
Miles Lewis, Melbourne: The City’s History and Development ( Melbourne : City of Melbourne, 1995), 100; Rohan Storey and Helen Stuckey, "Gone But Not Forgotten: The Sweet Sentiment of Remembrance,"Transition47 (1995): 76.
7.
Australasian Builders and Contractors News (ACBN), February 22, 1890, cited in Peter Mills, "The Limited City," research project, Department of History, Monash University, Melbourne, 1997, 11. The following paragraphs are heavily drawn from Mill’s stimulating essay, which covers the early debates on building heights in greater depth than that given here.
8.
Acbn, February 8, 1890, cited in Mills, "Limited City,"12.
9.
The review was protracted, and it was not until 1912 that a building height limit of 150 feet was enacted. Elizabeth M Farrelly, "Tall Tales," in Ann Stephen, Philip Goad , and Andrew McNamara, eds., Modern Times, The Untold Story of Modernism of Australia ( Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2008 ), 88-89.
10.
Manning Clark , A Short History of Australia ( Penguin: Ringwood, 1995), 209-10.
11.
A.C. Mountain , Melbourne city surveyor, "General Report: Descriptive of Works Seen and Places Visited,"City of Melbourne Council Minutes, 1906-1907, 230, cited in Mills, "Limited City,"30.
12.
Ibid., 286, cited in Mills, "Limited City,"22.
13.
Ibid., 230, cited in Mills, "Limited City,"30.
14.
"Proceedings of Victorian Institute of Engineers," September 2, 1907, 78.
15.
Ibid., 65.
16.
David Harvey , Paris: Capital of Modernity ( New York: Routledge, 2006), 111.
17.
Keith D. Revell , "Regulating the Landscapes: Real Estate Values, City Planning and the 1916 Zoning Ordinance," in David Ward and Olivia Zunz, eds., The Landscape of Modernity: New York City: 1900-1940 ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 20-24.
18.
Kingsley Henderson , "A Trip through the United States and Western Canada," Journal of the Proceedings of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects12, no. 2 (May 1914): 65.
19.
Frederic C. Spurr, Five Years under the Southern Cross ( London, 1915), 52, cited in Mills, "Limited City,"16.
20.
H.E. Morton , "New Building Regulations for the City of Melbourne ," Journal of Proceedings of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (September 1915): 163.
21.
Argus, July 22, 1915.
22.
Argus, March 15, 1930.
23.
Gail Fenske and Deryck Holdsworth, "Corporate Identity and the New York Office Building: 1895-1915," in Ward and Zunz, Landscape of Modernity, 151.
24.
The 132-foot (40 meters) limit related to buildings on the city’s principal thoroughfares. An 83-foot (25 meters) limit was laid down for the lesser streets and lanes. Argus, September 7, 1915, June 9 and 10, 1921; City of Melbourne, "By-Law Number 131," Melbourne, 1916; "Melbourne City Council Proceedings," vols. 34-35, VPRS8911/P1, Public Record Office, Melbourne , 7.
25.
Cheng Alman, "Manchester Unity Building," research report, Faculty of Architecture, University of Melbourne, 1969 , 45-46.
26.
Marcus Barlow , "Discussion on ‘Taller Buildings for Melbourne ,’" Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects23, no. 4 (September 1925): 98.
27.
Ibid., 100.
28.
Carol Willis, Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago ( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995), 46.
29.
Barlow, "Discussion,"99.
30.
Ibid., 102.
31.
Fenske and Holdsworth, "Corporate Identity,"129-30; Mark Girouard, Cities and People (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 320-21.
32.
Ibid., 102-3.
33.
Ibid., 107-8.
34.
Mills, "Limited City," 61.
35.
"The RVIA Victorian Street Architecture Medal," Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects27, no. 3 (July 1929): 60.
36.
Ibid.
37.
This practice brought the value of many city properties below the taxable minimum of £5,000 but resulted in street frontages as narrow as 12 feet (4 meters). Argus, June 19, 1928.
38.
RVIA Minute Books (April 15, 1929), 9354, State Library of Victoria.
39.
Argus, February 21, 1929.
40.
Argus, February 22, 1929.
41.
Herald, April 24, 1929.
42.
As with Los Angeles, Melbourne was a suburban metropolis-with a strong emphasis on the single detached house sited on a one quarter or one fifth acre block-and a similar climate and lifestyle.
43.
Metropolitan Town Planning Commission, Plan of General Development: Melbourne (Melbourne: H. J. Green, Government Printer, 1929), 168.
44.
Ibid., 168.
45.
L.F. Irwin , "The Trend of Design as Shown in Modern Architecture ," Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects28, no. 3 (July 1930): 70.
46.
M.R. Barlow , "Building Regulations and the Desirability of Increasing the Heights of Buildings in Melbourne," Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects29, no. 1 (March 1931): 17.
47.
IL. F. Irwin , "The Trend of Design as Shown in Modern Architecture ," Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects28, no. 3 (July 1930): 72.
48.
Ibid, 72.
49.
Herbert Brookes , "Tall Buildings for Melbourne," Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects29, no. 2 (May 1931): 44.
50.
Argus, July 27, 1931, 5.
51.
Ben Schrader , "Rebuilding Melbourne: Modernity and Progress in the Central Business District, 1910-1940" (PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 2001), 85-86.
52.
The building was erected in East Melbourne.The extra height was allowed because the building provided for open space at ground level. Philip Goad and Katrina Place, A Short History of Melbourne Architecture (Sydney: Pesaro, 2002), 19, 91.
53.
Lewis, Melbourne, 126.
54.
Bender, Unfinished City, 32-33.
55.
Melbourne’s most distinguished urban historian, Graeme Davison, has focused his research on these two periods. See, e.g., The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1978) and Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2004).
56.
The exceptions are mainly those that might be classified as proto-modern, including some art deco and moderne structures. Lewis, Melbourne, 123-24. Thomas Bender has recently (and correctly) criticized modernist historians’ emphasis on style as the main signifier of modernity in cityscapes. See Unfinished City, 33.
57.
Mills, "Limited City," 3.
58.
John M.Freeland, Architecture in Australia: A History ( Melbourne : F. W. Chesire, 1968 ), 298-99.
59.
Lewis, Melbourne, 68.
60.
Age, November, 3 1997.
61.
Ibid. The Southbank Precinct is a commercial and entertainment district sited on the south bank of the Yarra River. The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) is a historic preservation body
