Open House Melbourne 2013

The Open House concept is great, once a year the doors are thrown open and for free people are allowed to roam the nooks and cranny’s of Melbourne you wouldn't normally be allowed or think to go.

Yesterday:
A relatively quite day for myself and my friend today. She won a ballot to go to one of the limited access buildings 'The Johnston Collection - Fairhall House Museum' and wanted to go to the 'Phillips Shirts' factory where shirts are still made today - and considering how little Australia still manufatures this IS something to note.



Phillips Shirts:
Wow, old building, a tone of vintage fabric, an enchanting story of success from post war Australia. What's not to love. And if you're interested in vintage clothing or a custom shirt set to stand the tests of time most definitely worth the visit.

Second Floor, 274 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

Open Wednesday - Saturday 10.30am - 3.30pm or by appointment.

The Johnston Collection:
While this is open during the week for booked tours we've had a couple of years to make it (since we first heard about the collection and thought of going) and still hadn't. Who knows when we would have made it if we hadn’t won the ballot.

The museum is in a heritage terrace house. The house and the collection was willed to Melbourne by William Robert Johnston (1911-1986). The display we saw had been organised by an artist and contained some of the collection and some of her work set out in a narrative. Unfortunately I was not enamoured with the artists work, all 'modern' and seemed largely to consist of layered photo manipulations and canvases painted with reflective metal stuff and distressed a bit. Basically dull. 

One the other hand the collection was interested as was the stories around William Johnston. As the 'guest' artist changes regularly and the collection itself is rotated I will definitely be going back at some point. Christmas at the Johnston collection sounds particularly good.

And Sunday!
I'd love to go to one of the Open House's held in other cities/countries but until then I'll continue to discover more of Melbourne year by year.

Fist the Lego Education Centre
...Meh.
It's mostly just  a shop with some Lego out the back for kids to play with. Later in the day everyone who visited worked towards building a Lego city but being early we got nothing.  I did manage to buy a giant Lego pencil so not a complete loss.

Boyfriend join'd us here. For the person who lives the closest to the city he managed to be the latest.



Next the Melbourne Water Headquaters
After a slight glitch when the headquarters wasn't where the map said it was we made it just in time for a tour. I was mainly in it for the vacuum toilet technology. People laughed when I said I was going to go there to flush the toilet. We'll I got the last laugh those things are freaking great. It's like a jet in the toilet bowl. I am not ashamed of laughing like a loon after I flushed one.

NAB Headquarters - crazies' steps EVER as seen in the photo. It's an amazing office, though the levels and open planning would drive me nuts.

Lifestyle Working Collins Street - mostly empty still, just did a walk though

and lastly the Aurecon Centre which made me feel like my workplace was working in the dark ages. Seriously shiny shiny office building. I want.