With only a couple of days remaining, we went to have a look at the Dutch Masters exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

It was very much a faux exhibition with very few masterful pictures other than 4 or 5 Rembrandts and 1 Vermeer. The majority of the paintings were 17th Century lifestyle pornography from a burgeoning Dutch bourgeois high on their spice, colonial wealth and influence. More social than art history. Still (no pun intended), it was nice to see real life objects featured side by side with their painted counterparts.

Indavertently choosing an After Dark session, it was a most charming evening - being soothed by the élan String Quartet, being sated by Peter Rowland's terrific food and being mesmerized by Mario Bellini + Metier 3's renovation.

Cute manipulation: the exhibition's exit, of course, delivers you inside the NGV store...

In July 2002, when Japanese department store, Daimaru, closed its ambitious Melbourne Central store, it left most of the remaining tenants for dead.

Two years later the centre has re-opened with some of its original stores as well as a freshly minted but predictable collection of up-market fashion chains shops. Nothing new or that interesting really - and apart from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Store - just a junior Chadstone.

The basic layout hasn't changed much but both the internals and externals have been re-skinned.


Inside the main Lonsdale to Latrobe drag, chocolate and cream regency stripes cleverly conceal the complex's water pipes, conduits and air-con.


In particular, I like the large bubbles that now cover the two storey walkway over the Little Lonsdale street. Here's Norman Day's take on Ashton Raggatt McDougall's makeover.

More photos & impressions soon.