William Pitt (architect)
William Pitt (4 June 1855 – 25 May 1918) was an Australian architect and politician. Pitt is best known as one of the outstanding architects of the "boom" era of the 1880s in Melbourne, designing some of the city's most elaborate High Victorian commercial buildings. He worked in a range of styles including Gothic Revival, Italianate, French Second Empire, and his own inventive eclectic compositions. He had a notable second career after the crash of the 1890s, becoming a specialist in theatres and industrial buildings. Early life William Pitt was born in 1855 in Melbourne two years after his parents emigrated to Australia from Sunderland, England. His father, also William Pitt, ran some of the most notable cafes in Melbourne and was a practising artist. Raised in the suburb of St Kilda, he was educated at the Hofwyl School in St Kilda later attended George Henry Neighbour's college in Carlton. He later moved to the suburb of Abbotsford. Career In 1875 Pitt was articled to the architect George Browne, who was something of a prodigy himself, designing the Rupertswood mansion, Her Majesty's Ballarat and The Theatre Royal on Bourke Street in the early 1870s, when he was in his mid 20s. Pitt began his own architectural practice in 1879 at the age of 24 after winning the competition for the Melbourne Coffee Palace Bourke Street (between Swanston and Russell streets). His design of an elaborate Renaissance Revival style facade over five storeys set the tone for the level of detail he would lavish on his subsequent boom era designs. Competition wins marked the success of his early years, winning that for an equally elaborate Renaissance Revival Premier Permanent Building Society (1882), and the Falls Bridge (Queens Bridge) in the same year(neither was built to his design), His first prize winning entry in 1883 for "Our Lodgings" (later Gordon House) in Little Bourke Street, was an exception to his generally elaborate designs, being instead in an austere Tudor mode suitable for housing for the poor. Pitt's theatre work began with one of this best known buildings, and the most elaborate 19th century theatre exterior to survive in Australia, the Second Empire style Princess Theatre (1886) in Spring Street. The elaborate dome-like Mansard roofed pavilions, the each topped by crown-like cast iron capping, still makes a striking statement in Spring Street, and the sumptuous marble stair and elaborately ceilinged circle foyer are the finest Victorian era theatre interiors to survive in Australia (the auditorium itself was replaced in 1922). Perhaps following this success, in 1887, Pitt was appointed vice-president of the Victorian Institute of Architects. His largest and most ambitious commission followed soon after, the Federal Coffee Palace at the south-west corner of King and Collins streets. While he received a second prize for his design, he was allowed to collaborate with the winners, Ellerker & Kilburn and the result was a composite design. The massive elaborate building synthesises Renaissance revival, French Second Empire and French Renaissance elements and was both hailed