I've rarely seen these woven wire fences in Sydney, and weatherboard is not a particularly common building material. For cheap building material fibro is more prevalent in Sydney (and rarely seen in Melbourne). There are of course some weatherboard houses in Sydney, but it is rare to see them lovingly restored; these days they are more likely to be knocked down and replaced by a McMansion. Many inner suburbs of Melbourne have beautifully restored examples of Victorian and Edwardian weatherboard houses.
Now to the peak-capped brick fences. Common in 1950s Melbourne fences; unknown in Sydney.
The colour of bricks depends on the clay you have for raw material. This particular shade of red brick is a Melbourne special, as is the blonde brick. Having lived in both Melbourne and Sydney, show me a traditional commons brick from either city and I reckon I'd have a pretty good chance of getting its origin right. Weird, but there you are!
Hmm! Didn't realize Melbourne and Sydney are so different. But then again, LA and NYC are totally opposite of each other too.
ReplyDeleteI love the houses, they all look great and kept up nice.
ReplyDeleteI must confess, I do like what I've seen here of Melbourne architecture.
ReplyDeleteI can reassure everyone that not ALL of Melbourne housing looks this pretty! Like everywhere there's the good, the bad and the ugly.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s going on? I was onder the impression that people from Sydney were contractually obliged to bag Melbourne? ;)
ReplyDeleteOnly the immature and terminally unfunny. Grown ups don't worry about inanities like that.
ReplyDeleteExcept in my mother's case, it's been a relentless reversal of bagging-ness for the past 40 years since she moved to Sydney :-)
What a fascinating series. I had no idea of these differences. Looking at that first photo, I'd have sworn we were in Paddington or nearby. Shows how little I know. Beautiful photos, Sally.
ReplyDeleteThere's a "Melbourne red" house brick that is even "redder" than that shown here too. Sydney house bricks (and I'm talking commons, not all the new-fangled face bricks)tradionally were darker, some almost blue-red ("liver" coloured) or with more brown-red colouring. There are blonde brick houses, but not in quite the same shade. It's a ll a bit pedantic, but adds up to an architectural landscape that means if I were drugged and woke up in one city or the other I could probably tell. Tasmanian and SA traditional domestic architecture more closely resembles Melbourne's...thought SA uses more stone. There is a decorative patterning of bricks which is found in melbourne Victorian-era housing which is very beautiful, and it gets replicated in SA with stone and brick. It is almost unknown in Sydney. One day I'll hopefully get a photo of it. There are some grand examples around Hawthorn, Malvern and other eastern suburbs of Melb.
ReplyDeleteJilly, it does look a bit Paddington, with the iron lacework, but the building materials and fences (and size of the house and block) are not Paddington. The facade in the top pic is actually fashioned to look like stonework, but isn't.
These were all taken in old waorkign class, now gentrified inner west of melb - an area traditionally of wharf workers and factory workers - a suburb called yarraville (between Footscray and Spotswood)
These houses remind me of Harbour Island in the Bahamas. I love the lattice work around the trimming of the house and those picket fences.
ReplyDeleteThose houses are so cute! I like the fences too.
ReplyDelete