Celebrating architecture: a new approach to writing a guide book to St.Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne

Whether as a student, intrepid traveller, or interested lay person we have all had the experience of visiting a significant building with a guide/guidebook who/which has told the story of the family or provenance of every knick knack on display with hardly a mention of the architecture. The building is either taken as a given, with no need of any explanation or exploration, the site of a social, political or historical event, or the backdrop for a film or contemporary happening. As an architectural historian this has both appalled and intrigued me. Over many years I have avidly collected guidebooks to public, ecclesiastical and private buildings, locally and overseas. As an educator I have had the opportunity to develop field trips for students of architecture, to train guides of historic buildings and now to write a new guidebook for St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. While the Oxford Dictionary simply defines a guidebook as "a book of information for tourists", this paper provides the opportunity to critically explore the raison d'etre of 'architectural' guidebooks. It examines the purpose, the audience, the fine line between scholarship anp accessibility, story telling and experience. While there are many ways of looking at buildings, it suggests a new approach, highlighting the building as 'the star' and the guidebook as a vehicle through which it can be entered, revealed, understood and celebrated.