Carlo Catani and Alexandra Avenue: The Making of a European Promenade in Colonial Melbourne

Abstract

Alexandra Avenue, designed by Florentine immigrant Carlo Catani, was declared open in 1901 in Melbourne by the Duke and Duchess of York, as part of the celebrations marking the Federation of Australia. The ornamental boulevard was an object of wonder. Following the European tradition, counter to English ideas of propriety, it was to be a promenade where people would go to see and be seen. In the mould of American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Catani was an expert generalist, responsible for a wide range of landscape and engineering projects in Victoria, on whom little scholarship exists. The Avenue greatly influenced street aesthetics in inner Melbourne and was later used as an exemplar of urban streetscape at the inaugural Australian Town Planning Conference in 1918. It provides an insight into how urban landscapes were formed before specialist planners and demonstrates the way in which colonial cities such as Melbourne created an identity through their public spaces. This article enriches current scholarship on Catani – a significant influence on the city of Melbourne at the turn of last century.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Andrew Saniga of the University of Melbourne for providing the impetus for the writing of this article and for his subsequent generous guidance and advice. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors, whose careful reading and thoughtful comments have improved its structure and content.

Notes

1. Pamela Jellie and Georgina Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain (Melbourne: City of Melbourne Urban Design and Architecture Division, 1992), 12.

2. For information on European influences on Melbourne, see Graeme Davison, “The European City in Australia,” Journal of Urban History 27, no. 6 (2001), 779–93. Promotional pamphlets and visitor guides compared Melbourne to Paris, including Horace Perkins, Melbourne Illustrated and Victoria Described (Melbourne: H. Perkins & Co; Walker, May & Co., 1880), 11, and a section entitled Anon “Melbourne Queen City of the South,” 1–6. Tramway Guide to Melbourne and Suburbs: Containing Routes, Fares, Regulation, & C., and Rambles from the Routes (Melbourne: Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Co., 1894), 69, describes Melbourne as an “antipodal London”.

3. For information on the history of the laying out of the Melbourne grid and arterial roads, see Raymond Wright, The Bureaucrats’ Domain: Space and the Public Interest in Victoria, 1836–84 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25–32; and Miles Lewis, Philip Goad and Alan Mayne, Melbourne: The City’s History and Development (Melbourne: Melbourne City Council, 1994), 20. For the history of St Kilda Road and its origins as a toll road from the port of St Kilda to a major multi-laned avenue, see Judith Raphael Buckrich, Antoinette Birkenbeil and the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne’s Grand Boulevard: The Story of St Kilda Road (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1996). Other carriageways, such as the ornamental drive through Albert Park Reserve (1862), were primarily to provide access to St Kilda Pier. See Jill Barnard and Jenny Keating, People’s Playground: A History of the Albert Park (Burwood: Chandos Publishing, 1996), 25, 28.

4. Letter from Catani to Inspector-General of PWD, 24 July 1896, cited in Alex Holgate, Monier Arch Bridge at Anderson Street, Melbourne: The Morell Bridge (Clayton: Dept. of Civil Engineering, Monash University, 1998), 22.

5. Davison, “The European City in Australia,” 781.

6. See Davison, “The European City in Australia,” 779–93, for an overview of the tension between the Anglo-Saxon preference for order and cleanliness in urban design and the more expansive – and, some would say, subversive – desire to emulate the squares and accompanying lifestyle of continental Europe more suited to the temperate climate of southern Australia.

7. For an insight into the monopolisation of this section of London during the “season” by the aristocracy, see Kathryn Wilkins, “‘The Most Exclusive Village in the World’: The Utilization of Space by the Victorian Aristocracy during the London Season,” Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine XL, no. 1 (2011): 5–16. For a period account of the relationship between the aristocratic class and use of Rotten Row, see Anon, The Queen’s London: A Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks, and Scenery of the Great Metropolis in the Fifty-Ninth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (London: Cassell & Co, 1896), 129, 336.

8. Holgate, Monier Arch Bridge at Anderson Street, 15.

9. Georgina Whitehead, “Melbourne’s Public Gardens: A Family Tree,” Victorian Historical Journal 63, no. 240 (1992): 101–17, 109; also, the Yarra Improvement Act, No. 1447, 1896, 32.

10. Taverner’s claim for conceiving of Alexandra Avenue appears to be based on an article in The Argus, May 18, 1901: 13–14, written for the opening of Alexandra Avenue. As the current article argues, however, the aesthetic vision for Alexandra Avenue was closely associated with Catani, and there is no evidence of a design contribution by Taverner beyond general statements regarding the desirability of an ornamental roadway.

11. Daniel Volpe, From Tuscany to Victoria: The Life and Work of Pietro Baracchi, Carlo Catani, Ettore Checchi (Melbourne: Italian Australian Institute, 2005) has provided the most significant contribution to the study of Catani, mainly using secondary sources and collating established information on his career. The current article adds to this foundation by using Public Work Department’s files and period newspaper accounts. Writing by Clement Hodgkinson included Australia from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay: With Descriptions of the Natives, Their Manners and Customs; The Geology, Natural Productions, Fertility, and Resources of That Region (London: T. and W. Boone, 1845), as well as a report, “The Advisableness of Establishing State Forests,” written with Charles Ligar, the Surveyor-General, and Brough Smyth, the Secretary for Mines, and submitted to parliament in 1865. Writing by W. R. Guilfoyle included regular contributions to the Garden Gazette, eg. “Rockeries,’ (February, 1903). Other publications include “Tourist Notes on the Picturesque in Gardens, Parks and Forests,” Bankers Magazine of Australasia, 10; Australian Botany: Specially Designed for the Use of Schools (Melbourne: S. Mullen, 1878); and W. R. Guilfoyle, Australian Plants Suitable for Gardens, Parks, Timber Reserves, Etc. (Melbourne: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1909).

12. See James McClaggan, “Melbourne Street Gardens,” The Lone Hand, August 1, 1908: 428–32.

13. For a comprehensive overview of the emergence of the landscape architecture profession in Australia from professions such as surveyors, engineering and gifted amateurs, see Andrew Saniga, Making Landscape Architecture in Australia (Sydney: New South Publishing, 2012); and for an understanding of the generalist origins of the planning profession, see Robert Freestone, Urban Nation: Australia’s Planning Heritage (Collingwood: CSIRO Publishing, 2010).

14. Wright, The Bureaucrats’ Domain, 78–80; VA744 Description of Board of Land and Works, PROV.

15. See the description of the Lands Department in The Cyclopedia of Victoria: An Historical and Commercial Review, Descriptive and Biographical Facts, Figures and Illustrations, an Epitome of Progress, ed. James Smith (Melbourne: Cyclopedia Company, 1903). This description outlines the careers of the main bureaucrats, including Catani (219–20).

16. Smith, The Cyclopedia of Victoria, 220.

17. Wright, The Bureaucrats’ Domain, 220.

18. Civil Service Commission, VPP No. 59. Supplemental Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into and Report Upon the Civil Service of the Colony (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1859–1860).

19. Letter, John Clayton Town Clerk, Melbourne City Council, to Secretary for Lands, November 5, 1900. Victorian Public Record Series (VPRS) 3181/P0000/757, Public Records Office of Victoria, Melbourne, outlining the plan for the Prince’s Bridge Approach and referring to the Act.

20. Memo, Catani to Inspector-General of Public Works Department, January 4, 1901. VPRS 3181/P0000/757, PROV; Letter, Secretary of Lands to Town Clerk, February 21, 1901. VPRS 3181/P0000/756, PROV forwarding Catani’s report.

21. Memo, “Catani to Melbourne City Council,” February 21, 1901. VPRS 3181/P0000/756, PROV.

22. “Death of Mr. Catani,” Prahran Chronicle, July 27, 1918: 4; “Death of Mr. Catani,” Malvern Standard, July 27, 1918: 4; “Mr. Carlo Catani. Engineer and Artist. An Appreciation,” The Prahran Telegraph, August 19, 1916: 5; “Mr. Catani’s Retirement. An Appreciation,” Gippsland Times, March 12, 1917: 3; and “Mr. Catani’s Retirement,” The Argus, May 10, 1917: 6.

23. “Testimonial to Carlo Catani, Esq. Chief Engineer” (Melbourne: Public Works Department, 1917).

24. “Laying out of Edwardes Park,” Northcote Leader, July 24, 1915: 2; “Visit of Mr. Catani: Laying out the Hospital Grounds, Proposal to Beautify the Old Cemetery,” Gippsland Standard and Alberton Shire, Representative, July 24, 1914: 3; “Spotswood Park and Lake: Design of Mr. Catani,” Williamstown Advertiser, May 26, 1917: 2; “West St Kilda Progress Association: Visit of the Mayor and Mr. Catani,” Prahran Telegraph, February 14, 1914: 5; “A Beautiful Garden: Designed by Signor Catani who will lay out the Warragul Park,” West Gippsland Gazette, May 5, 1908: 7; and “Warragul Public Park: Selection of the Trees; An Important Work; Signor Catani’s Advice to be Sought,” West Gippsland Gazette, June 22, 1909: 7.

25. “Visit of Mr. Catani: Laying out the Hospital Grounds,” 3.

26. Ronald McNicoll, “Catani, Carlo Giorgio Domenico Enrico (1852–1918),” Australian Dictionary of Biography (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979).

27. Volpe, From Tuscany to Victoria, 140–57.

28. “Beautifying Melbourne: Our Debt to Mr. Catani; Maker of Playgrounds,” The Argus, January 4, 1926: 6.

29. Heritage Victoria, Catani Gardens H1805 (Melbourne: Heritage Victoria, 1997).

30. “Beautifying Melbourne”.

31. “Beautifying Melbourne,” 6.

32. Report from Fitzgerald Frisby Landscape Architecture, Catani Gardens and Southern Foreshore Management Plan (St Kilda: City of Port Phillip, 2010), 7.

33. Heritage Victoria, “Catani Gardens,” VHR 1805, 2013.

34. Saniga, Making Landscape Architecture in Australia, 30.

35. Jellie and Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain, 13.

36. For a useful discussion on the attribution of continental European influence, particularly French and Italian, to Melbourne, see Davison, “The European City in Australia,” 779–93.

37. “Beautifying Melbourne,” 6.

38. “Late Mr. Catani: Proposed Memorial,” Prahran Chronicle, August 3, 1918: 5.

39. VPRS 967/P0000/45 Yarra Improvement Inwards Correspondence 1890–99. PROV; VPRS 967/P0000/46 Yarra Improvement Inwards Correspondence 1900–14. PROV.

40. Carlo Catani to City Surveyor, January 23, 1901. VPRS 967/P0000/49, PROV; Carlo Catani to Abbott, December 3, 1900. VPRS 967/P0000/49, PROV; Catani to Inspector General PWD, December 13, 1900. VPRS 967/P0000/49, PROV; Catani to Inspector General PWD, December 17, 1900. VPRS 967/P0000/49, PROV. See Catani to Inspector-General PWD, December 17, 1900 and December 13, 1900. VPRS 967/P0000/49, PROV, outlining the dispute with contractor Walsh over the cost of carting stone. The Yarra Improvement files of the period are interlaced with this dispute, with Catani sending letters to the surveyor responsible for the original estimates, January 23, 1901; to Abbot his head foreman to verify quantities, December 3, 1900; and to the Inspector-General of Public Works, defending his position, December 13, 1900.

41. Letter, Mr Marshall to Carlo Catani, June 26, 1899. VPRS 967/P0000/45, PROV requesting compensation for loss of horse with note by Catani recommending payment.

42. Catani to Inspector General PWD, August 9, 1900, VPRS 967/P0000/45 1890–99, PROV outlining the problems of rock acquisition and number of injuries among workers.

43. Frank Clarke, In the Botanic Gardens. Their History, Art and Design, with Stories of the Trees (Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens Limited, 1924), 60.

44. Alexander Park Minutes, March 18, 1913. VPRS 4039/P0000/2, PROV.

45. 97/2262 Letter and drawing, Carlo Catani to Inspector General PWD, May 17, 1897, VPRS 967/P0000/45 PROV.

46. “Alexandra Avenue, Melbourne,” Red Funnel, January 1, 1906: 478.

47. “Alexandra Avenue,” The Garden Gazette, January 1903: 132–34; VPRS 865/P0000/11 16/5/01, Letter Guilfoyle to Penal and Gaols Department asking for rockery plants for a female prison in Coburg. In his reply Guilfoyle explains that “the new drive has had to be planted from end to end with rock plants from the gardens”.

48. Georgina Whitehead, Civilising the City: A History of Melbourne’s Public Gardens (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1997), 61.

49. For a comprehensive overview of the design and construction of the Anderson Road Bridge and Catani’s role, see Holgate, Monier Arch Bridge at Anderson Street, Melbourne. Although John Monash has been credited with the design and construction of Anderson Road Bridge, Holgate makes a convincing argument for the conception and modification by Catani of a generic design by Messrs Carter Gummow, with John Monash being largely absent from the project, although his firm acted as Victorian representatives of the patented Monier system.

50. J. T. Noble Anderson, “Metropolitan Roads and Bridges,” Journal of International Engineers Australia 6, no. 10 (1934): 359.

51. Holgate, Monier Arch Bridge at Anderson Street, Melbourne, 22.

52. Letter, Carlo Catani to Inspector-General PWD, August 9, 1900. VPRS 967/P0000/46, PROV.

53. Letter, D. Campbell to Town Clerk, Richmond, July 4, 1900. VPRS 3181/P0000/757, PROV.

54. “Interviews with Leaders: Mr. W. R. Guilfoyle; Beautifying Melbourne,” The Argus, September 30, 1905: 4. A similar view had been attributed to Guilfoyle and others in 1903. See “Alexandra Avenue,” The Garden Gazette, January 1903: 132.

55. “Alexandra-Avenue: Opened by the Duke,” The Argus, May 18, 1901: 14.

56. “Alexandra Avenue, Melbourne,” 478.

57. “Alexandra Avenue, Melbourne,” 478.

58. For some useful background on the ideas of public landscape as moral framework of public behaviour in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia, see Theresa Wyborn, “In Pursuit of Useful Knowledge: The Nineteenth-century Concept of the Botanic Garden,” in Melbourne’s Pride and Glory: 150 Years at the Royal Botanic Gardens, ed. Andrew Lemon (Melbourne: Victorian Historical Society, 1996), 17–27.

59. For information on the use of classical statuary and ornamentation throughout Melbourne’s public gardens in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Whitehead, Civilising the City.

60. Letter, Catani to Inspector General PWD, March 18, 1901. VPRS 967/P0000/46, PROV.

61. Letter, Catani to Inspector General of PWD, May 30, 1901. VPRS 3181/P0000/758, PROV.

62. Victorian Electoral Roll for Melbourne (Melbourne: Victorian Electoral Commission, 1899).

63. “Alexandra-Avenue,” The Argus, May 18, 1901.

64. Jellie and Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain, 15.

65. McNicoll, “Catani”; The Argus, July 22, 1918: 4.

66. The Argus, July 22, 1918: 4.

67. Robert Freestone, “The Internationalization of the City Beautiful,” International Planning Studies 12, no. 1 (2007): 31.

68. Davison, “The European City in Australia,” 779–93; Robert Freestone, Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful, 1900–1930 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2007); Freestone, “The Internationalization of the City Beautiful,” 21–34.

69. Peter Hoffenberg, “Colonial Innocents Abroad?: Late Nineteenth-Century Australian Visitors to America and the Invention of New Nations,” The Australasian Journal of American Studies 19, no. 2 (2000): 4–24.

70. Anon For the comparative figures of population in Australian cities, see Select Documents in Australian History 1851–1900, ed. C. M. H. Clark (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1962 [1955]), 666; cf. British Parliamentary Papers, 1901 Census of England and Wales, General Report with Appendices, CVIII edn (Cd. 2174) 1 (1904).

71. The Melbourne Guide Book: With Pictorial Map of the City and Bird’s-Eye Views of the Streets (2nd edn) (Melbourne: McCarron, Bird and Melville, Mullen & Slade, 1895); Anon, Popular Guide to the Centennial Exhibition: With which is Incorporated the Strangers’ Guide to Melbourne (2nd edn) (Melbourne: W. H. Williams, 1888); Perkins, Melbourne Illustrated and Victoria Described. In this last publication, for instance, the Melbourne Town Hall is compared to the Palais du Champ de Mars in Paris (11). See, for instance, Samuel Clemens, The Innocents Abroad: A Book of Travel in Pursuit of Pleasure (London: J. C. Hotten, 1870); Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself and other Autobiographical Writings, ed. Thomas Pinney (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); and Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand 2 volumes (London: Chapman and Hall, 1873).

72. Robert W. Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Graeme Davison, “Festivals of Nationhood: The International Exhibitions,” in Australian Cultural History, eds. S. L. Goldberg and F. B. Smith (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

73. Major international exhibitions were held in Sydney (1879), Melbourne (1880–1881 and 1888), Adelaide (1887) and Brisbane (1897).

74. Deputation, Victorian League of Wheelmen to J. W. Taverner, Minister of Public Works, August 27, 1896. VPRS 3181/P0000/757, PROV.

75. For a history of cycling in America and its impact on the landscape, see Robert L. McCullough, Old Wheelways: Traces of Bicycle History on the Land (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015).

76. Letter, A. W. O’Neill, Secretary, Special Park Commission, City of Chicago, to Melbourne City Council, February 8, 1901. VPRS 3181/P000/436, PROV.

77. Letter, Warren H. Manning to John Clayton, Town Clerk, Melbourne, July 30, 1898. VPRS 3181/P0000/755, PROV.

78. Freestone, “The Internationalization of the City Beautiful,” 31.

79. See Allan B. Jacobs, Elizabeth Macdonald and Yodan Rofé, The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); and Freestone, “The Internationalization of the City Beautiful”.

80. Official Volume of Proceedings of the First Australian Town Planning and Housing Conference and Exhibition, 1917 (Adelaide: State Executives of the Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition, 1918), 7.

81. Jellie and Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain, 14.

82. James McClaggan, “Melbourne Street Gardens,” The Lone Hand, August 1, 1908: 428.

83. McClaggan, “Melbourne Street Gardens,” 431.

84. Letter, John Guilfoyle to Parks and Garden Committee, August 4, 1904. VPRS 3181/ P0000/762, PROV.

85. Report of the Baths and Parks Committee for the Year 1905. VPRS 3181/P0000/765. PROV.

86. See The Age, April 27, 1907: 6. Anxiety about the harmful effects of increasing industrialisation on the national character was reflected in government policies, such as the Land Settlement Act 1893 (Vic), the popularity of the Tucker Village schemes and the Soldier Settler schemes associated with the First World War and the Second World War. See Melissa Bellanta, “Clearing Ground for the New Arcadia: Utopia, Labour and Environment in 1890s Australia,” Journal of Australian Studies 26, no. 72 (2002): 13–20; and Marilyn Lake, The Limits of Hope: Soldier Settlement in Victoria, 1915–38 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1987) for an overview of these ideas.

87. Jellie and Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain, 17.

88. Jellie and Whitehead, A Landscape History of the Melbourne Domain, 16.

89. See Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), for an insight into the dominance of Olmsted in American landscape design and his occupational background before becoming a landscape designer, which included farming, mine manager, administrator of the United States Sanitary Commission, journalist and surveyor apprentice. At the time of winning the competition for Central Park with the French-born architect Vaux Calvert, he was Park Superintendent for the New York City Council. He remained deeply involved in the construction of the park.