Precinct 4: Temples of Mammon

Its original centre was the Hall of Commerce near the south-east corner of Collins and Queen Streets. During the gold era, merchants and bankers gathered here each day to read the shipping lists and exchange bills. In the great days of sail, business was done face-to-face. Speculators traded shares under the verandah of the Hall of Commerce, sometimes spilling out onto the roadway.

But the land boom transformed the scene. The classical solidity of Joseph Reed’s Bank of Australasia, erected on the north-west corner in 1878, contrasts with the Gothic extravagance of its neighbours, the ES&A Bank (1880-3) and William Pitt’s new Stock Exchange of Melbourne (1889) (now the ANZ Bank on the north-east corner). When the National Mutual Life Company (now the Bank of New Zealand) was erected on the south-west corner in 1891-93, its architects were instructed to adopt the fashionable Venetian Gothic style and to rival the height of its soaring neighbours.

Stop 8
During the 1880’s boom, the city's financial centre exploded. New banks, building societies and stock exchanges advertised themselves in a dazzling mix of Classical and Gothic architecture. Why did Melburnians build their banks like churches or temples? 'Perhaps our banks are really our temples, for they represent the worship of that god which presides over at least six days of our week', an architect shrewdly suggested.

Stop 8
ANZ Gothic Bank
In his headquarters for the new English, Scottish and Australian Bank, goldrush immigrant William Wardell created what experts later acclaimed as the finest Gothic Revival building in Australia. General manager George Verdon lived like a Venetian magnate in a private suite above his new bank. Be sure to look inside at the magnificent banking chamber, with its iron columns and guilded heraldic decoration.

Stop 8
A cathedral for capitalists
You can walk through the banking chamber to the adjoining Great Hall ('Cathedral Room') of the former Stock Exchange of Melbourne. Designed in English Gothic by William Pitt (1889), the Hall superseded the verandah of the old Exchange as a meeting place for brokers and their clients — the main trading floor was upstairs. The ANZ Banking Museum, entered from 380 Collins Street, has excellent exhibits on the city’s financial history.

Stop 9
The hidden dome
Cross the street and proceed on the south side to 333 Collins Street. Behind this modern facade is the astonishing domed banking chamber of the former Commercial Bank of Australia, designed by Lloyd Tayler and Alfred Dunn in 1891. Manager Henry Gyles Turner, who rode with the gold escorts in the 1850’s and with the land boomers in the 1880’s, rued his optimism when the bank was forced to close in 1893.