The Lost City of Melbourne

Drawn from the captivating documentary of the same name, The Lost City of Melbourne takes a loving look at the city during its boom years, and observes the changes in culture and architecture that changed the face of Melbourne.

During the city’s lockdown turmoil, Melbourne filmmaker and owner of Thornbury Picture House Gus Berger started to look at what Melbourne was like during its boom years and was not only amazed at the pioneering and enterprising people that shaped the city at the end of the 19th century, but also shocked by the size and beauty of some of its buildings – buildings that are sadly no longer with us. He wondered what happened to the glorious cinemas that were on every street corner and why the grand hotels that hosted Mark Twain and Agatha Christie were no longer standing. What happened in Melbourne in the mid 1950s that brought them all down?

So began a project of trawling through online photographs at the State Library of Victoria, watching old film within the NFSA archives, reading books on Melbourne history and conducting interviews with experts on Melbourne in his cinema foyer between lockdowns. The end result was the Lost City of Melbourne feature documentary, and this handsome book, which captures a radically different vision of the city we love.