Anger over modern, ‘look-at-me’ design for historic site

Community groups have vowed to fight plans to knock down a building at the corner of Victoria Parade and Nicholson Street in Carlton and turn it into an 11-storey development.

The St Vincent Hospital has proposed knocking the building, which overlooks the Carlton Gardens, to build a new research hub.

Emeritus Professor Charles Sowerwine, the Heritage Committee Chair at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, told Heidi Murphy on 3AW Drive it was a very important site with heritage significance.

“This is the only such site in the world where you a surrounded by a Victorian streetscape pretty much the way it was just before this century.”

He described the new building as a “modern, look-at-me” design, and suggested a more “sympathetic” look would be better suited.

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