Australia House And Government Of Victoria Offices

Australia House and Government of Victoria Offices are high commission offices constructed between 1912 and 1918 by A. Marshall Mackenzie, with sculptural work by H. Palmer. The design incorporates the Government of Victoria offices built between 1907 and 1909 by Alfred Burr. The building is constructed of Portland stone on a steel frame, with a slate roof. It is an imposing example of Beaux Arts architecture with Imperial Baroque influences, situated on a trapezoidal island site as part of the Aldwych-Kingsway development.

The building is six storeys high, including a mezzanine and attic storey, and features two tiers of dormers in a steep mansard roof. It has six windows wide on the convex Aldwych front and seven windows wide on the Strand. A vast, single-bay entrance front faces the splayed apex of the site, with the Government of Victoria Offices incorporated as a west terminal pavilion fronting Melbourne Place. The entrance is highlighted by a lofty architraved doorway with a cornice on consoles, flanked by large pedestals bearing pyramidal groups of over life-size allegorical figures carved in stone. Above the entrance, the vertically grouped, bronze-framed windows are flanked by colossal Roman Doric columns in antis, set between pilasters, and stepped forward from the channelled flanks. Above the deep main entablature, set within framed dies, is a large bronze group depicting Apollo and a quadriga rising from the sea. The return elevations feature a channelled podium with a ground floor and mezzanine arcade. Above this rises a colossal order of coupled Roman Doric columns in antis mirroring the entrance, and screening three storeys of bronze-framed windows. Above the main entablature, the grouping of the colossal order is echoed in the pilastered dies that advance from the recessed attic storey. The lower tier of dormers has pilaster terms and block cornices, while the upper tier are treated as oeil de boeuf. The roof ridges are metal-cased, resembling ribboned fasces, and terminate with cartouches.

The Government of Victoria Offices have an arcaded ground floor and mezzanine, with bold pulvinated banding. The first and second floor windows are vertically grouped with segmental cornices on consoles; two- and three-light windows punctuate the third floor, all framed by a giant order of banded Ionic quoin pilasters. A lofty attic features quoin piers and a blocking course. The interior features marble-lined principal ground floor rooms along the main axis, leading to a grand staircase.