William Pitt (architect)

"For the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1766-1768 (William Pitt the Elder), see William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. For his son, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1783-1801 and 1804-1806, see William Pitt the Younger"

William Pitt (1855-1918) was an architect and politician working in Melbourne, Australia in the later part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Early life

Pitt's roots were in the suburb of St Kilda, he lived and was educated there for some time and one of his finest contributions and surviving architectural works, the St Kilda Town Hall is one of the landmarks of the area (although his original vision for the building was never fully realised).

Architect career

He began his architectural practice in 1879 and he became highly sought after during the land boom in Melbourne, particularly for his theatres.

Although many of his buildings have since been demolished, including one of his earliest and grandest buildings, the Melbourne Coffee Palace (1879) which was once located on Bourke Street between Swanton and Russell. Despite this, many of his buildings remain today.

The distinctive castellated design of the Victoria Brewery (1882) in East Melbourne was also one of his early works. The heritage registered building, unused for many years was sympathetically converted into apartments in 2004, and its mansard roof re-instated. His fashionable Gordon House apartments (1884) in Little Bourke Street continued to show the influence of this style.

Pitt's extensive work in Gothic revival featured some surviving examples in the Venetian Gothic idiom. The Olderfleet (1888) and Rialto Buildings (1889) in Collins Street are on the Victorian Heritage Register. Although only retaining the front 10 metres, they with the neighbouring South Australian Insurance Building and Charles D'Ebro'sWinfield Building make up Melbourne's, and one of the world's, finest intact Victorian streetscapes. Also in the Venetian Gothic style are the Old Stock Exchange (1888) and Old Safe Deposit Building (1890).

Pitt was possibly best known for his theatre design, particular the spectacular interior design. Few of Pitt's theatres remain. His greatest, the Princess Theatre (1886) in the Second Empire style, in Spring Street has survived. Unique in its time in having a sliding roof it fell into disrepair and was nearly demolished. The theatre received a lavish renovation in the early 1990s.

The pinnacle of Pitt's career was the Federal Coffee Palace constructed on the south-west corner of King and Collins Streets in 1888. This extraordinary building more than any other epitomised the speculative land boom which was 'Marvellous Melbourne' of the 1880s. A massive and outlandish building with references to numerous architectural styles it grew from the temperance movement of the day which also produced many Coffee Palaces, including the equally large but somewhat more restrained Grand Hotel, now the Windsor Hotel, in Spring Street. The temperance movement fell out of favour in the 1890s and the Federal Coffee Palace became the Federal Hotel. The hotel was ultimately demolished in 1973 in an era when many Victorian buildings were lost in a wave of 'modernisation'.

After the coffee palace boom, Pitt began to specialise in warehouses. His polychromatic design of the 3 storey Denton Hat Mills (1888) in Abbotsford, Victoria began this trend. The buildings were sympathetically converted into apartments in the 1990s. Tower House (1891), a fanciful combination of Tudor, Queen Anne and Mannerist styles was once a landmark on the corners of Spring and Flinders Streets. It was demolished in 1957 and is now the site of Harry Seidler's Shell House.

Partly due to a cultural cringe, the contribution of Pitt's work to Australian architecture was very late to be recognised.

Gallery of Work

Politics & Architecture

Pitt continued to work into the twentieth century while also pursuing a political career. He was mayor of the City of Collingwood and also a member of the Victorian legislative council, and was a staunch advocate of the Federation of Australia.

Most notable of his later architecture work was the Empire Works (later Bryant and May factory) (1909) in inner suburban Richmond. At the end of his architectural career he also designed the Victorian Racing Club (1910) on Collins Street which has since been demolished and Sir Charles Hotham Hotel (1912), which survives on the corner of Spencer and Flinders Streets as a backpacker hostel.