EARLY VICTORIAN EXPANSIONS 1838–1850

Mid-10th century architects tended to react against the simplicity and strict symmetry of Georgian architecture. Contradicting the more pretentious neo-classicist (mostly Grecian) ideals of London’sRegency architects, many expatriate Victorians ‘went Gothick’ with romantic pastiches of Mediterranean, medieval European and occasional Islamic and Oriental features.

Lyons Terrace, Hyde Park, Sydney, by John Verge and John Bibb, 1841; (George Edwards Peacock/SLNSW).
Port Arthur prison settlement, Tasmania; unknown artist, 1830s-1850s (Tasmanian Archives).
Detail from a Melbourne panorama drawn from Scots Church by Samuel Jackson, 1841 (SLV).
George Street Barracks, Sydney; artist George Roberts, c1845 (SLNSW).

Topics surveyed in Chapter 3 of Australian Architecture are:

—Launching Victoria’s reign

—Early Victorian architectural styles

—Planning a new Government House

—Regulating architecture

—Sydney’s early terrace houses

—Surges of churches

—Next-generation architects

—Updating Port Jackson

—Mid-century streetscapes

—Edmund Blacket and Pugin’s true principles

—Other colonies emerge

—Norfolk Island’s second settlement

—Tensions in Van Diemen’s Land

—Developing Melbourne

—Opening Moreton Bay to free settlers

—Adelaide’s early civic structures

—Architecture on the threshold