History of The Site
The site was originally the Melbourne Hospital, built in the 1860s and designed in the gothic revival style, it was completey rebuilt between 1911–1912 by architect John James Clark to accommodate a larger number of patients and renamed in honour of Queen Victoria. The hospital was composed of several Edwardian pavilions or loggia, each of them with fanciful domed cupolas except for a corner building, which was based on a square plan and more of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. A women's hospital opened on the site in 1946. The hospital was closed in 1987, and the site was valued at A$63 million in 1987. It was eventually sold for merely $15 million to property developer David Marinner in 1992. All but three of the hospital pavilions were demolished in the following year.
Several options were proposed for the site, including a possible site for the new Melbourne Museum (which was also under consideration for Southbank and Carlton Gardens), and proposals were put forward to integrate the heritage buildings. One such design post modern architects Edmund & Corrigan included giant Egyptian inspired pyramids to tie the pavilions together into a single piece. Carlton Gardens was instead the chosen site for the museum.
During the early 1990s, the site was home to a series of failed ventures, including a craft market, mini golf course, and skateboard rink, before becoming a simple carpark.
Two of the three buildings which remained standing in 1994 were demolished after requests for heritage protection were rejected by then Planning Minister Rob Maclellan. The final remaining building later became the Queen Victoria Women's Centre, and the rest of the site was sold to the country of Nauru, which owned several other sites in the city, notably Nauru House, for $50.3 million.
As the site continued to remain relatively unused and abandoned in the centre of Melbourne's business district, it was called a "bloody disgrace" by then Premier Jeff Kennett. After Nauru struggled to pay for the empty block, it was returned to the Melbourne City Council in 1999, which announced plans to develop the site. Grocon was awarded the tender to develop a $600 million "urban village" on the site.
Read more about this topic: Queen Victoria Village
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“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will be destroyed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)