Brick shopfronts and iron lace verandahs frame two pedestrian malls around McWhirters' art deco tower.
What Fortitude Valley looks like
Two pedestrian malls split the retail grid between Wickham and Ann Streets, running the length of Duncan Street and a block over. Narrow laneways connect them, including , built from recycled timber salvaged from demolished Queenslander houses mixed with brick.
Face brick shopfronts carry iron lace verandahs over the footpath, mostly two and three storeys with landmark blocks rising to five. The brick dates from the 1880s to the 1930s, across three separate waves of construction.
anchors the corner of Wickham, Brunswick and Warner Streets, a five storey former department store in red brick with an art deco tower and terracotta trim over an arcaded ground floor of shops. The keeps its timber doors folded open a block away on Wickham Street, the bar visible from the footpath under a painted sign.
Chinese signage and shop awnings line the corner at Wickham and Brunswick, with a red post box and traffic bollards at the kerb. Side streets carry brick warehouses up to four storeys, with loading doors and painted hoardings at street level.
A former stands on Brunswick Street in cream brick, twin spires either side of a rose window. Its ground floor is shopfronts now, with a function room and a glass balustrade built onto the roof above.
Shot in Fortitude Valley
Godzilla vs. Kong closed Chinatown Mall for a single day to film at the Chinatown Shopping Mall on Duncan Street. The production worked inside the existing pedestrian precinct, using the mall's own shopfronts and signage rather than building a set.
Godzilla vs. Kong, 2021
Chinatown Mall
The shoot used the mall exactly as it stands, shopfronts and awnings rather than a dressed set, for a one day closure of the pedestrian precinct. The production does not name a specific storefront within the mall. Street View
What Fortitude Valley can double for
West End in Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle's High Street carries the same scale, two storey face brick and rendered shopfronts under cast iron lace verandahs, most of them built around 1900. The verandahs project the same bullnosed curve over a narrow footpath that Fortitude Valley's malls carry. Fremantle's brick runs paler and more often rendered than Fortitude Valley's red brick, so a tight frame on one shopfront holds the match better than a full street width. Try searching cast iron lace verandah shopfront now.
Port Adelaide's warehouse streets carry the same four storey brick blocks as Warner Street, with loading doors and parapets at the same scale. Commercial Road keeps a similar scale to Chinatown Mall, two storeys with awnings over the footpath. Port Adelaide leans more toward bluestone with brick dressing than solid face brick, and several of its original verandahs were removed, so a wide shot can read plainer than Fortitude Valley. Try searching brick port warehouse street now.
Hardware Lane in Melbourne, Victoria
Hardware Lane's red brick walls and narrow width match the scale of Bakery Lane, both service lanes turned into a run of small bars and cafes. The brick dates from the early 1900s, laid in the same plain stretcher bond as Bakery Lane's walls. Hardware Lane keeps its original cobblestones, which Bakery Lane does not, and the awnings strung overhead read more European than anything in Fortitude Valley. Try searching red brick lane bars now.
