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What is significant?
How is it significant?
Why is it significant? The Prahran Arcade is of architectural significance as a rare
suburban example of a Victorian era shopping arcade. The Prahran Arcade is of historic and social significance as its
ambitious scale and opulent facade symbolise the confident exuberance
of commerce in Melbourne during the boom of the late 1880s.
The Prahran Arcade, designed by local architect, George McMullen,
and constructed by James McMullen, for Elizabeth Delaney, opened in
July 1890. The two and three storey building originally comprised 29
ground floor shops and a hotel, complete with about 30 bedrooms, and a
café, baths and billiard rooms on the upper floors. From the 1920s the
building was known as the Centreway and from the 1960s to the turn of
the century the whole building was used by wine merchant, Dan Murphy.
The three storey street facade, designed in the Victorian Second
Empire style features deep balconies and a profusion of elaborate
cement decorative elements. The original mansard roof has been
removed, a cantilevered street verandah added and the ground level
facade altered. The lofty glazed gable roofed arcade has arching iron
trusses and a pilastered blind upper storey. The arcade shopfronts
have been removed.
The Prahran Arcade is of architectural, aesthetic, historic, and
social significance to the State of Victoria.
The Prahran Arcade is of architectural and aesthetic significance
as a representative example of Victorian Second Empire architectural
style applied to a suburban commercial building. The style's profusion
of controlled elegant detail epitomises the excesses of late 19th
century architecture in Victoria. The application of the style to the
Prahran Arcade, which stood cheek by jowel with its neighbours, is
unusual, because it was typically applied to more free-standing
structures such as the Town Hall and Shamrock Hotel at Bendigo, and
the former Records Office, Queen Street, Melbourne.
Commercial
Other - Commercial