Inside a part of the Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney.
The Queen Victoria Building (QVB) was finished in 1887. It housed markets until 1910. Then it was renovated into a mixture of commerce, crafts and skills. There were shops, studios, offices and workrooms for some two hundred traders, dealers and artisans. Housed within the upper galleries were bookshops, sheet music shops, piano-sellers and piano-tuners, as well as the salons of private teachers of music, dancing, singing, elocution, painting, sculpting, drawing and dressmaking. There were also sports including a billiards saloon, a gymnasium for ladies and a table tennis hall.
Notwithstanding all the tenants the QVB did not generate a profit for its owners, the Council of the City of Sydney for over the 100 years they owned it. Consequently every 20 or 30 years there were serious moves to demolish the QVB and build a car park or gardens or another building.
Various groups had many fights to keep it standing and it underwent extensive renovations in 1979–1986 and 2006–2009 after the National Trust declared it to be a Class A building of historical importance.
The QVB is now a huge retail building generating profits to its latest owner, The Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (since 1984).
It’s now a landmark building in the centre of Sydney.
Thanks. I really haven’t captured how big this building is so I might have to go back!!
Ian
Thanks. As I said I going to have to take a photo of the outside of the building as well.
And to think they whoever they are wanted to tear it down.