Filigree architecture

The name "filigree" refers to the intricate texture of this screen-like verandah, which was often perforated to let air and light pass through, creating dazzling displays of shadows.

[5] The style was mainly popularised by speculative builders,[6] but it also did not have a class consciousness, being used both on humble workers cottage developments, as well as by prominent commercial architects such as Richard Gailey and Andrea Stombuco.

"[9] And while both ornamental cast iron and verandahs can be found elsewhere in the world, Australia possesses a unique interpretation of the design and form of this style, as well as a prevalence unseen elsewhere.

Australian architectural history was split into six distinct, chronological eras: Old Colonial; Victorian; Federation; Inter-War; Post-War; and Late-Twentieth Century.

[14] The name "filigree" refers to the intricate texture of the balustrades, columns, brackets and freizes that made up that verandah screen, which was often perforated to let air and light pass through.

This lacy, filigree screen was designed to stand proud of the mass of the main building, creating an in-between space that was both public and private.

[14] The first verandah structures built by European settlers were bungalow-type buildings perhaps inspired by examples found in other parts of the British Empire through the connection of military officers who had served in India.

Later, during Grose's tenure as governor a single storey verandah was added along the front of Government House, and in 1802 it was extended along the side of the new eastern additions.

[18] Captain John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth built their farmhouse at Parramatta in 1894 with a verandah running along the northern aspect overlooking the river.

[20] Another prominent early example of the style was the quadruple-storeyed Royal Hotel on George Street, Sydney (c.1840), whose heavy, towering appearance was much remarked upon by visitors.

[22] It was one of the first terraces which had raised party walls that projected above the roofline, as required by the Building Act 1837, which had been passed by the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales three years earlier.

With this prosperity came a growing demand for more and more ornate styles of architecture, and this boom-time optimism found its physical expression in florid explosions of cast iron lacework decorating the facades of the most triumphant buildings.

These lacy filigree screens were at first simple; on Lyons Terrace only the balustrade was made from cast iron lacework, but the style eventually developed to include brackets, friezes, fringes, and sometimes even double-friezes.

Its polychrome brick facade shimmers underneath the cast ironwork verandah, and the lacework has been painted in cream and maroon to mirror the brickwork, creating a blur of colour that astonishes an onlooker.

On the double-storey verandah of the Royal Hotel, Hill End (c. 1869-75) a cast iron balustrade graces the upper level, with the roof being held up by Sydney-style openwork columns.

In the Victorian-Era, the facades of buildings varied: they could be unrendered face-brick or they could be rendered and painted in a myriad of colours; the bricks could be pale blonde, or hawthorn blacks, or any manner of polychrome arrangement.

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.

A quest for novelty and eclecticism often marked architecture in this period, and influences were drawn from Romanesque, Moorish, and Art Nouveau traditions to create eccentric and idiosyncratic facades.

Areas that experienced large amounts of upper-middle class development in the Federation era contain some of the best surviving domestic examples of the timbered-verandah style.

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.

However the council panicked and started demolishing the rear of the building, and when confronted by members of the National Trust destroyed the frontage under the cover of nighttime.