How to make an entrance: Piranesi comes to Ballarat

"The inside front cover of this publication carries an image of CRCAH's front door, the main gateway to the former Ballarat Gaol. It is a magnificent example of nineteenth century masonry work. The massive bluestone blocks were carved and chiselled into a grand classical edifice, making a fitting southern finale in scale and significance to the great range of buildings on either side of Lydiard Street. The remarkable architectural statement of a confident gold rich city runs from the os­tentatious neo-classical railway station at the northern end past the Art Gallery, the Mining Exchange, the palatial former Post Office (now housing the studios of the university Arts Academy) and on along the facades of banks, hotels, theatres and churches, in a melody of styles from palladian to gothic (with some 20th century intrusions) down to the suitably 'redbrick' buildings of the Ballarat School of Mines. Here the road swings round to the west so the range of prison buildings bookend the whole composition with a dramatic solemn coda " -From forum article