page_title: William Pitt (architect)
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: William Pitt (architect) / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: William Pitt's Olderfleet Roof Designs
context_page_description: William Pitt 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.
context_section_description: 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 Swanton 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 Street and Collins Street.  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 and criticised for its extraordinary ebullience.  Completed in 1888, the enormous building later came to epitomise the speculative land boom which was "Marvellous Melbourne" of the late 1880s.
  Pitt could produce equally elaborate work in variations of the Gothic revival style. The Flemish Gothic Olderfleet (1888) and the Venetian Gothic Rialto Buildings (1889) a few doors down in Collins Street are essential elements of the Rialto group, the most elaborate and cohesive commercial Victorian Streetscape in Melbourne. His other greatest work in Collins Street is the lavishly detailed Gothic Revival Stock Exchange (1888), complete with rose window, spire and vaulted 'Cathedral Room' on the ground floor. In 1890, he added the Gothic Revival Safe Deposit Building around the corner on Queen Street.
  His polychromatic design of the very long, 3 storeys high  Denton Hat Mills (1888) in Abbotsford, Victoria began his specialisation in industrial design.  He also designed Brunswick Town Hall in 1889.
  Tower House (1891), once a landmark on the corners of Spring and Flinders Streets, was a fairly standard Italianate body, topped by a steeply pitched Gothic roof and spiky corner tower with a witches hat roof.
  One of his rare residential commissions was  Collendina, near Corowa NSW, built for Henry Hay Esq. in 1891, dominated by an elaborate double level cast-iron verandah.
  In 1892, he showed his passionate support for the Collingwood Football Club by designing a grandstand for Victoria Park for free.
  Like so many others, Pitt suffered a massive financial setback during the financial crisis of 1893. Not only did he lose commissions as building work practically ceased, but other investments failed.
  He kept his practice going however, and began a second career, designing a range of building types in the then fashionable styles, specialising in theatre and industrial projects.
  He is responsible for much of 
caption: Pitt's details for the roof and tower fleche of the Olderfleet
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