Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Travelog Australia 2015: State Library of Victoria, ANZ Gothic Bank and Hosier Lane

Date: June 26th, 2015

The Library is located at Swanston St, within the free City Circle Tram route. It has a moderate size lawn to chill out.
 The State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne. It is on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets, in the northern centre of the central business district. The library holds over 2 million books and 16,000 serials, including the diaries of the cities founders, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, and the folios of Captain James Cook, R.N.. It also houses the original armour of Ned Kelly.-Wikipedia 

It has 7 reading room, with the Dome being the most famous. Anyway, I spent some time planning where to go in the Redmond Barry reading room, before heading to the Dome for some photo. The place was too quiet for me to stay too long haha. Inside the Dome, you could go up the top floor where they have a Stained Glass Exhibition as well as to have a vantage point to view the octagonal shape of the reading room.
My first stop after the library is the ANZ Gothic Bank, on the corner of Queen Street and Collins Street. This building has an actual working bank as well as the ANZ Banking museum. Since it was a quick stop, I just took a peek into the bank.
It comprises two buildings: the former English, Scottish and Australian (ES&A) Bank on the corner and the former Melbourne Stock Exchange, fronting Collins Street. In 1923 the two buildings were renovated and combined, becoming known simply as the 'Gothic Bank.' Both are superb examples of the gothic revival style, albeit in contrasting ways. The former ES&A Bank is an exercise in graceful restraint, whereas the former Stock Exchange reflects the exuberance of the 1880s’ banking boom. In recent times, they were restored as part of the construction of the ANZ World Headquarters. - melbournecurious.blogspot

As usual, the museum closes at 5pm and I was not in the mood of walking around in there so I head to my next destination while daylight still exists - Hosier Lane.
 I came to know about this graffiti art lane thru RunningMan. There was this specific location where Kwang Soo and Woo Bin made a video clip on an art lane. Of course I couldnt find the exact location but this seems like it. It looked a bit different but then I was told that the graffiti will always change when the artist paint over the old grafitti. Coincidently, Hosier Lane is located behind the St.Paul's Cathedral so I could get back to the hostel to refresh before meeting Nad for dinner.
There were a lot of aisle surrounding the Hosier Lane; full or arts on the wall, dustbins and pretty much everything except the floor. Also found an artist drawing on one of the walls. By the time I was done, it's already dawn. Time to go back to the hostel before meeting Nad at 8.





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