Arts & Culture » History
Hold the front page! Melbourne’s first printing office
This image of a derelict building in a laneway off Market St was the scene of great activity in the early years of the colony ...
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Thunder, drums, bells, whistles: the magic of the Town Hall organ
Melbourne Town Hall was opened in August 1870 and two years later the “grand” organ you see here was installed, with 4373 pipes and 24 manual and 66 speaking stops.
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Clackety-clack: train journeys and the Travellers Aid Society
“Clackety clack – clackety clack. There was a big train”. Some of my favourite childhood stories were about trains. And my absolute favourite was a Little Golden book called The Train from Timbuctoo that began with these words.
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Odeon Theatre, 283 Bourke St
There had been a theatre on this Bourke St site since the Melba Theatre opened in 1911. That was during the era of the silent movies.
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A jewel of a theatre: the Bijou in Bourke St
The Victorian Academy of Music, feted by the press as a “jewel of the theatre”, was a much anticipated “palace raised to the Muses” and its foundation stone was laid with great fanfare by the Governor of Victoria on May 23, 1876.
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Women at work – Sands and McDougall staff, 1897
What better way to celebrate Women’s History Month in March than taking a peek into the working lives of female office workers in the 1890s?
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Behind the facades – Bourke St, 1875
It’s not often you come across a photograph that gives such a clear view of the backs of the buildings that line the CBD’s streets.
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Robbie Burns in St Kilda Rd
As you link arms and sing Auld Lang Syne this New Year’s Eve, you probably won’t bring to mind the legendary poet Robert Burns who died 226 years ago in distant Scotland never having visited Australia, which at the time of his death had been settled barely a decade.
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More vintage Melbourne
A sequel to Old Vintage Melbourne has been released, this time a compilation of photographs taken between 1960 and 1990.
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In the words of Carole King: “City streets, the stories that they tell”
When the Hoddle Grid was superimposed on the early Melbourne landscape in 1837 it did not take into account the spiritual and cultural connections to this land of its traditional custodians, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung Peoples of the Eastern Kulin.
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New designs for Apple Store
ArtPlay’s newest initiative is a playful combination of serious and silly rolled into one
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