Second Prize Design, Melbourne International Exhibition Building
Lloyd Tayler1878
Museums Victoria
Carlton, Australia
The building represented in this watercolour marks a significant period in Melbourne's development as a cosmopolitan city, riding on the wave of the incredible wealth generated from gold. To demonstrate its optimism, enthusiasm and energy, Melbourne decided to host an International Exhibition.The Victorian government agreed to finance a new exhibition building. A public competition was held and in May 1878 the winner was announced. From a pool of 18 entries, Joseph Reed of Reed ; Barnes architects took first prize (and Ł300 prize money). Lloyd Tayler, a very prominent architect in Melbourne (and Australia) was awarded Ł200 for this second place entry (as a consolation prize he was also appointed an exhibition commissioner with a gold pass to the Melbourne International Exhibition). Third place was awarded to Peter Matthews who received Ł100.Though Tayler did not win the competition, this watercolour of his design gives a vivid sense of the grandeur envisaged by supporters of the International Exhibition.
- Title: Second Prize Design, Melbourne International Exhibition Building
- Creator Lifespan: 1830 - 1900
- Creator Nationality: English
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Brighton, Victoria, Australia
- Creator Birth Place: London, United Kingdom
- Date Created: 1878
- Physical Dimensions: w1710 x h1060 mm
- Type: Object
- Rights: Copyright expired: Source: Museum Victoria / Artist: Lloyd Tayler, Copyright expired: Source: Museum Victoria / Artist: Lloyd Tayler
- External Link: Museum Victoria Collections
- Medium: Painting; Watercolour on Paper
- Themes: competitions, Royal Exhibition Building
- Artist biography: Lloyd Tayler was born in London in 1830. In 1851 he moved to Australia, first to Albury, NSW, and then the Mount Alexander goldfields. By 1854 he was living in Melbourne and had established an architectural practice, initially with Lewis Vieusseus, but by 1856 he was working on his own. Tayler designed the Colonial Bank of Australasia and, in the 1860s and 1870s, branches for the National Bank of Australasia (in Richmond, North Fitzroy, Warrnambool and Coleraine). He was also the architect of the Australian Club in Melbourne (1878), the Melbourne Exchange, and the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., Melbourne (1880). In 1874, with Edmund Wright, he won the competition for the South Australian Houses of Parliament (begun in 1881), and in 1890 Tayler and Alfred Dunn won a competition for the Melbourne head office of the Commercial Bank of Australia. Tayler also completed a number of domestic projects in Melbourne and Victoria. Tayler was an inaugural member of the Victorian Institute of Architects (1856) and was admitted a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1874. He was also a justice of the peace and a founder of the St John Ambulance Association in Victoria (1883). Lloyd Tayler died in August 1900.
- Artist: Lloyd Tayler
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