My Year with Bluestone: Framed by Bluestone

Two weeks ago, we met with one of the curators at the Melbourne Museum about another project, on fire. At the end of our discussion I told Liza about the bluestone project. She had a few great ideas on the spot and a few days later she emailed: 

And BTW, here is a thought for Stephanie’s project on bluestone:  I was thinking on the way to work this morning, looking at the bluestone gutters and garden edging – how Melbourne seems to be framed by bluestone.  It is in all the edges – window ledges, streets edges, garden edges, fencing, foundations for buildings, back street lanes. Very functional, but on the edge of centre.

This expresses very well the way we experience bluestone in the city. It isn't always in the main gaze, though there certainly are some spectacular buildings here, and elsewhere in the state. But as I walked to the tram in Fitzroy, and then from the tram in Carlton, here are just a few photos of the thousands similar ones it would be possible to take all over the city.

A small stretch of the miles and miles of bluestone laneways behind Victorian and Federation, where the nightsoil used to be picked up. This configuration of bluestone, brick and rolling doors is seen all through the city. People walk down laneways, harvesting lemons and grapes that overhang the fences or pick armfuls of fragrant jasmine in spring. Cycling down them is a great way to avoid the traffic, though it can be a bumpy ride.

This configuration below is also very familiar: the foundations are less smooth than the stones above, and kept unpainted, like the margin or frame of the house.

 This side entrance is less common: note smoother bluestones for the steps:

Our streets are lined with bluestone gutters: 

Little traffic islands surround posts and notices: 

Bluestone is also the foundation for many an iron fence: 

The same configuration is used for grand public structures too: here is the corner of the gateway to the Exhibition Gardens on Rathdowne St (my photo of the gateway from the front came out badly: 

I'll leave that for another post): 

Often the railings have been removed or been destroyed: this is a very common site around Melbourne. Note the reddish colouring where the iron has rusted: 

And my last, most decorative shot from this morning's walk down Grattan St: a pretty tiled verandah framed by bluestone foundations and iron fence.

As the city's 

framework, bluestone is functional, solid, unobtrusive: the support for elegance and grandeur but also beloved in its own right.