Boom style architecture

"Boom style" is a term used to describe buildings from the Melbourne 1883-1889 Land Boom during which a massive property bubble created wildly speculative values for land and excessive borrowing. Boom style buildings were often rich in ornament and decoration. Initially borrowing was aided by generational wealth from the Victorian gold rush but fuelled by additional hype generated from the city's growing reputation as a boom town, including being labelled 'Marvellous Melbourne' by George Augustus Sala in 1885. Owners, confident that ever increasing prices would exceed their debts, would often engage architects to create exuberant designs in exotic styles that signified wealth something fashionable during the 1880s. However at the end of the boom in 1889 prices soared so high that properties pushed skyward to maximise the value of land which was itself excessively overvalued. Borrowings far exceeded the value of the buildings and most of the Land Boomers ended in bankruptcy with most of the cost of construction never recovered, which had a ripple effect which by the early 1890s had crippled the Victorian economy. For a period of time the phrase was used derogatively during a period when the style was "on the nose" due to association with bad debts and corruption, as further justification for their demolition.

Though the bubble existed elsewhere (Ballarat and Bendigo experienced relatively moderate speculation during the period) and ended with the Australian banking crisis of 1893, the term's use is rare elsewhere. Sydney's construction from the period were more modest and contributed to its economy rebounding from the financial crisis whereas Melbourne's did not. The phrase is sometimes used, uncapitalised, to designate similar opulent architecture of overlapping periods across the late British Empire, and to some extent in America.