Shocking. Le Louvre in the Paris End of Collins Street has been reduced to a facade. How did this happen ? From information we have gleaned it seems to be a case of the developer having deeper pockets to line up experts to say it was ‘unstable’, and the fact that permission came from the Ministry of Planning, who were more concerned to allow development than about heritage.

In 2011 the permit from the Ministry of Planning for the tower behind it required “recommendations fo...r protection of the building at 74 Collins Street, Melbourne to ensure the heritage integrity of the building is protected....to the satisfaction of the City of Melbourne” but nothing happened until this year, when they started work to put a shop (or a restaurant?) in it and ‘discovered’ that the 180 year old walls (its an 1850s terrace) weren’t strong enough to hold up any new work - or at least that’s what their engineers said. The CofM don’t have funds to hire their own engineers, and the Ministry of Planning didn’t mind, and so permission was given - without any kind of public process.