Mark Strizic Melbourne: Marvellous to Modern by Emma Matthews
A young science student from Europe, Mark Strizic arrived in Melbourne just as the city was coming of age. Creeping out from beneath its Victorian heritage and shunning the stiff upper lip of the British Empire, Melbourne of the 1950s was a city of (tentative) possibility and Strizic’s images perfectly capture this collision of the old world and the new. On Collins Street, the ornate facade of the Rialto building bravely competes with the streamlined thrust of Phosphate House, while elsewhere a group of men gather for a chat and a cigarette on the steps of the State Library. A history of a city, a time and its people, this unique collection of photographs is accompanied by two insightful essays.
Emma Matthews (Thames and Hudson, 2009) 512pp RRP $150.00
