Moroccan revival architecture

Orientalism was not merely a movement in painting, it was also an influence upon the architecture of the era. I was reminded today that there are some shining examples of this here in Victoria, and especially in Melbourne. The example in the picture (above) is the Forum Theatre. It is built in the so-called Moroccan Revival style. I was fascinated with this building when I was younger and worked in the Melbourne central business district. I only saw one play there, though, or perhaps two. It is a strange and incongruous building set amongst 1950s functional box office blocks. How odd to find such a conspicuously Islamic-style building in the centre of a city at the far south of Australia. But, as I say, the good state of Victoria boasts many fine 'orientalist' buildings, both public and private, including some 'orientalist' Masonic Lodges. Here's an example above a store front in Bourke Street:

These buildings are now a powerful reminder of just how far our cultural affinities and borders have shifted. In nineteenth century Melbourne, the English/Australian establishment - like the English upper class - were fascinated by all things 'oriental' and Islamic. The context for this was, of course, European subjugation of much of Islamic civilization, but there was a conscious process of assimilation, a real attempt to appreciate and understand the 'orient'. This was a flirtation of the upper class conservatives. They wanted to acquire the opulence and fine taste of the east. In contrast, the new labour movement despised 'orientals' of any description and were irked by upper class fraternising with the 'Turk'. 

Today, the situation is quite different. One of the characteristics of contemporary conservatives is their unrestrained loathing and distaste for anything to do with Islam. The context for this, of course, is a resurgent Islam and the threat of militant Islamism. It is leftists who favour Islamic immigration and oppose the oil wars. So a building like the Forum is especially incongruous. Not only is it geographically incongruous but it is also now temporally incongruous as well. It belongs to another era entirely, when the whole shape of global geopolitics and the configurations of the Islamic/West dynamic were entirely different to how they are today.