Terrace houses in Australia

Terrace houses in Australia began to be built in early 19th century Sydney, closely based on the models found in London and other UK cities.

In the aftermath of the Great Fire of London, streets of houses with identical fronts were built as a result of the Rebuilding Act 1666 that was passed to regulate the reconstruction.

Some of its most prominent measures dealt with fire control, and it required Lyons Terrace to have its party walls raised 1 foot and 6 inches above the roof-line.

In a significant departure from the unroofed balconettes of the time, the houses of Lyons Terrace featured repeated, covered balconies with cast iron balustrades on the first two floors.

[12] Both Underwoods Tenements and the still-standing Coles Buildings, Millers Point (c. 1845-48) followed a subdued version of the Old Colonial Georgian vernacular, with windows arranged symmetrically and simple bald-faced facades lacking ornamentation.

[20] Jobbins Buildings, The Rocks (c. 1855-1857) with its subtle breakfront and diminished central pediment aspires to a more tasteful Regency style,[22] but its facade was still absent of the filigree verandahs that characterised later Victorian terraces.

Katoomba House, Millers Point (c. 1875) was a two-storey terrace when originally built, with a cast iron balcony railing featuring a pattern of overlapping circles.

Praised for its "florid ornateness," this magnificent row of eight features three levels of matching of cast iron lace from the foundry of Dash & Wise.

[83] The increase of slums in areas of terraced housing saw the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects in 1910 identify the problem as being caused by small inner city allotment sizes.

Suburbs such as Albert Park, Fitzroy, Carlton, Parkville and East Melbourne are now subject to strict heritage overlays to preserve what is left of these streetscapes.

Outside of Melbourne, the larger cities of Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong are home to a range of examples, from modest rows to impressive ones, though generally only in short runs.

[95] Due to the subtropical climate, the verandah is a prominent feature of Queensland terraces, and is often deeper than those in the southern states, in order to provide shade, privacy, and coolness.

It is the only colony to have never received British convicts, and much of its early population increases came from migration, both through the government assisted passage scheme and through free migrants that paid their own fare.

The 'Boom Style' exuberance of Victorian era Sydney and Melbourne, with their long rows of heavily ornamented terraces, was not echoed in South Australia.

West Australian terraces were more likely to be called 'tenements' than 'terraces' and surviving examples are mostly found in the inner-city areas of Perth, and in older suburbs such as Subiaco and Fremantle.

While the rest of Australia experienced a period of economic depression in the 1890s, the West Australian gold rushes meant that the state boomed during this time, and Perth's population tripled within one decade - by 1901 it had reached 27,553.

[123][121] At Hillside, Albany (1886), a freestanding two-storey house built in the Victorian Filigree style, the cast iron columns bear the brand of Revel Adams & Co's Vulcan Foundry, Adelaide.

Despite the relatively small size of its major cities in comparison with those on mainland Australia, Tasmania, being one of the oldest European settlements, has a number of examples of early terrace housing, particularly in inner Hobart.

Northern Tasmania, being closer to Melbourne's centre of gravity, was touched by this influence more than Hobart, and so in places such as Launceston grand Melbourne-style terrace rows were built.

They had were decorated with classic hallmarks of the Melbourne-style including high boom-style parapets and iron lacework that was cast in Melbourne, then imported to Tasmania.

In Victorian and Federation-era Australia, there was great demand for housing that was close to transport and commercial centres, and rows of shop-residences were often built along main, arterial roads in order to achieve this.

In Sydney it was particularly common for terraces in residential areas to have a corner shop built at the end of a row, often with a cantilever, wrap-around balcony overhanging the pavement.

[135]Thorby Buildings, Leichhardt (1912) is a largely intact row of shop-residences built in the Federation Filigree style, although it has undergone various alterations, including the rendering of facades and the addition of corrugated iron cantilevered awnings.

Horbury Terrace, Macquarie Street (c. 1836) reproduces many of the components associated with the English Regency style, including a stucco-rendered facade painted in white; a subtle cornice at the parapet; symmetrically placed eight-pane windows; and uncovered, cast-iron balconettes.

The economic prosperity of the 1830s came to a sudden stop when the wool boom ended in the depression of 1842–43, which effectively halted building activity for many years and left a gap in the architectural record.

[152] Australia's enlightened society sought an architectural language to flaunt its newfound prosperity, and found it in an exaggerated Classical style that took inspiration from the "extroverted pomp of imperial Rome and the grandeur of the fully developed European Renaissance.

[154] Buildings in the Victorian Academic Classical style were symmetrical in plan and massing, and involved correct application of one of the five architectural orders to determine proportions.

[167]In the Federation Era, the style remained essentially the same; Filigree-style terrace rows were still characterised by a filigree'd verandah screen that stood proud of the building and dominated the facade.

In red brick, the Federation Era had found its staple ingredient, spreading it on every external-facing wall, from train stations to substations, from mansions to terrace houses.

Eastbourne House and terraces, East Melbourne (1906), likely designed by Robert Haddon in a florid, personal interpretation of a Federation Art Nouveau-Filigree style, uses wrought iron to smash apart established understanding of lacework balcony norms, drawing the balustrade out and down in a tendril to link up with the frieze beneath it.