The Nicholas Building, the art-deco building on Swanston St. and Flinders Lane, is up for sale. This is a crisis for Melbourne’s culture because its tenants include galleries, bespoke bookstores, boutiques, and many studios. For the sake of Melbourne’s culture, I hope that the Nicholas Building can continue to provide affordable and dynamic spaces for art galleries and studios.
Jewellers bench in the Nicholas Building
“The Nicholas Building Association is campaigning to ensure that whoever buys the building buys it with us,” Nicholas Building Association spokesperson and artist Dario Vacirca explains. “That they too recognise the value of Melbourne’s most unique and diverse creative business community, the city’s only artist- and creative-led cultural offering of this scale. We have support for a business case from the City of Melbourne, and are in discussions with Government and the philanthropic sector. This is an extraordinary – and urgent – opportunity for Melbourne to invest in its future.”
So far, this post is mainly cribbed from the media release of the Nicholas Building Association. Now I want to support their claim that it is “one of Melbourne’s most valuable cultural precincts” by citing my own posts about this building. A search returns pages of blog posts; most are reviews of exhibitions at the multitude of galleries that have operated in the building. Most notably, Blindside, an artist-run-gallery that is basically a junior Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). From this I have selected three posts and a gallery of photographs:
Black Mark 
June 25th, 2021 at 12:05 PM
Thanks for sharing, Mark. I have fond memories of the Nicholas Building and hope that it retains the look, feel and amenity that it’s always had, ever since the shmatte trade days.
June 25th, 2021 at 12:32 PM
It is a fascinating building but it is the bookshops, galleries and studios that keep bring me back to it.
July 12th, 2021 at 12:14 PM
It’s where Vali Myers set up last when she was in Melbourne.
July 12th, 2021 at 12:43 PM
Yes, there is a small brass plaque on the door of her former studio (on the 7th floor?)
November 21st, 2021 at 10:46 AM
[…] at the entrance of Cathedral Arcade on the ground floor of the Nicholas Building (another reason to Save the Nicholas Building). It is across the road from where the Bourke and Wills Monument was previously located in […]