View looking along St Kilda Road [completed Centenary pylons on Princes Bridge]

Princes Bridge Centenary pylons complete 

Even though this is a street scene, it feels very intimate; we are instantly immersed in the activity of a Melbourne afternoon, looking down St Kilda Road from a viewpoint near today’s Federation Square. The focus is on the Centenary Pylons, erected on Princes Bridge to mark Melbourne’s Centenary in 1934. The sixteen plastered pylons were designed by Roy Prentice, the second person to qualify as an architect at the University of Melbourne in 1933, and aged just 27. The State Electricity Commission sponsored the work and The Argus reported that the pylons were “illuminated from within to give the effect of soft radiance”.  

Australia Home Beautiful reported that the taller pylons were 48 feet high. Timber-framed and faced with fibrous plaster and galvanised sheet iron, each structure was bolted to a concrete foundation three feet in depth. Panels of glass were indirectly lit by forty 100 watt lamps, and the upper bank of lamps were dyed so as to flood them with a deep red light. The shields and flagpoles were illuminated by three 200 watt concealed projectors, part of an electric night light decoration scheme involving 28 miles of wire to supply more than 20,000 lights. Melbourne was converted into “a coloured fairyland by night”. LMCK

MCK 102 Inkjet print by John Gollings on Canson Platine Fibre Rag

Featured in "Newsworthy: Melbourne in photographs 1933-1936" exhibition at East Melbourne Library, October to December 2023. Exhibition caption by project volunteer, Louise McKenzie