A City Lost and Found uses the demolition sites of Whelan the Wrecker — Melbourne's most storied wrecking firm — as portals into the layered, often forgotten histories buried beneath the city's streets and footings.
About This Book
For a hundred years, from 1892 to 1992, Whelan the Wrecker's sign appeared on rubble-strewn sites across Melbourne, marking the end of one chapter of the city and the beginning of another. Robyn Annear takes those demolition sites not as endings but as excavations — each cleared block an opportunity to trace what stood before, and before that. The result is urban history told through loss: a portrait of Melbourne's built environment assembled from the wreckage of its own making. Annear's method is forensic and her storytelling vivid, recovering the human stories embedded in buildings most Melburnians never knew they'd lost. Essential reading for anyone serious about the history of Australian cities and the forces that shape them.
Key Features
- 320 pages of narrative urban history drawing on Melbourne's demolition and construction records across three generations
- Written by Robyn Annear
- Published by Black Inc., 1992
What You'll Discover
- How a single demolition firm — operating across three generations of the Whelan family — physically transformed the face of central Melbourne
- The stories embedded in hundreds of demolished buildings, recovered through the rubble of successive waves of urban renewal
- The tension between progress and preservation that has defined Melbourne's approach to its built heritage since at least the 1920s
- How to read a city's identity not only through what survives, but through what has been deliberately removed
About the Author
Robyn Annear is a Melbourne-based historian known for her narrative approach to Australian urban and social history. A City Lost and Found draws on her close attention to archival detail and her ability to animate the overlooked lives and structures of the city's past.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 320
- Dimensions: 198 x 128mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781863956505
- Publisher: Black Inc.
- Publication Date: 1992
Perfect For: Architects, urban historians, and Melbourne residents interested in the city's demolished built heritage and the forces that have shaped its urban fabric across successive generations.