LGBTIQA+ Heritage Study
Heritage Study
Yarra City Council
City of Yarra, VIC
Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country
The City of Yarra in Melbourne has a thriving and diverse LGBTIQA+ community.
The City of Yarra has long been home to numerous LGBTIQA+ businesses, spaces and events which have contributed to strong connections and associations within the LGBTIQA+ communities—connections which are living and evolving.
In 2023 Yarra City Council engaged GML with subconsultants Way Back When historians to undertake a heritage study of places and objects of significance to LGBTIQA+ communities in the City of Yarra. The study was completed in mid 2024.
Undertaken in two parts, the Yarra LGBTIQA+ heritage study included identification of places of potential significance to LGBTIQA+ communities in Yarra followed by detailed analysis and assessment of heritage significance.
Central to the identification of the places was consultation and community engagement. This included online surveys and mapping, group workshops and targeted stakeholder consultation. The project is indebted to all who contributed stories, memories and knowledge about the many places that reflect themes of importance to LGBTIQA+ history in Yarra.
3CR community radio station in Fitzroy.
The outcomes of the study were recommendations to protect 13 individual places assessed as significant to LGBTIQA+ communities in Yarra, and updates to five Heritage Overlay precincts integrating the LGBTIQA+ values the study identified into the existing precinct documentation. Other outcomes included updates to existing place histories for four places in the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) so that their LGBTIQA+ histories could be reflected in the VHR, and recommendations to celebrate and promote the tangible and intangible LGBTIQA+ heritage of Yarra.
Courage, 2014 by sculptor William Eicholtz at 209-217 Napier Street, Fitzroy.
Also crucial to place identification and understanding significance was the preparation of new thematic histories to supplement the existing Yarra Thematic Environmental History. The additional thematic histories were prepared by Way Back When for six themes: activism and advocacy; commemoration; creative life; health and wellbeing; social life, recreation and gathering places; and enterprise, commercial and retail.
Johnston Street Precinct, former site of the Victorian Aids Council at 117 Johnston Street, Collingwood.
