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Federation Square
It’s increasingly hard to imagine Melbourne without Federation Square. Home to major cultural attractions, world-class events, tourism experiences and an exceptional array of restaurants, bars and specialty stores, this modern piazza has become the city’s focal point; its heartbeat.
Since opening in 2002, Federation Square has received more than 90 million visits. It is currently number two for national and international visitation to Melbourne and is regularly among Victoria’s top two attractions in the state for local visitors.
This response is in part a result of the extraordinary range of event activities held each year. Federation Square is host to more than 2,000 events a year including New Year’s Eve celebrations, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, large public rallies, live sites for major sporting events as well as school holiday and Christmas programs.
Federation Square also hosts major attractions and world-class galleries including The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the Melbourne Visitor Centre.
Federation Square is managed by Fed Square Pty Ltd, which was established by the Victorian Government in 1999. Find more information about Fed Square’s history, architecture, the company’s commitment to social responsibility and more at Federation Square website.
Photograph - David Simmonds, 'Super Panorama of Federation Square and the Yarra River', 2006, Federation Square
Courtesy of David Simmonds and Federation Square
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This image of Federation Square and the Yarra River was taken in May 2006.
Photograph - 'The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia', 2002, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria
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In recent years LAB Architecture Studio has engaged in a speculative exploration of the effects of new organisational and ordering strategies through architectural form.
LAB embraces industrial techniques employed in the development of contemporary architecture, but does not believe that this implies uniformity. Instead, chance encounters that occur during the construction phase are embraced and incorporated into the final structure.
Photograph - 'The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australian Art', 2002, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria
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The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, features unique display areas to showcase work drawn from the permanent collection and a comprehensive temporary exhibition schedule. In addition, within the centre there are also a shop, café, restaurant and theatre.
Photograph - John T. Collins, 'Melbourne - View from the A.N.Z. Tower', 19 September 1979, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of State Library Victoria
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Before the construction of Federation Square the Jolimont rail yards effectively cut the city from the river.
Photograph - Wolfgang Sievers, 'Melbourne looking North from the South bank of the Yarra at night', 1967, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
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Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
Courtesy of State Library Victoria
The Gas and Fuel towers were a striking presence on the banks of the Yarra and were a popular subject for architecture photographers such as Wolfgang Sievers.
Photograph - Wolfgang Sievers, 'Melbourne from Batman Avenue', 1967, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
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Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
Thought ugly to many, and said to block the city from the Yarra, the aesthetic quality of the Gas and Fuel towers could be identified by some.
Photograph - Wolfgang Sievers, 'Swanston Street and Batman Avenue', 1959, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
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Courtesy of Wolfgang Sievers and State Library Victoria
City commuters walk towards Princes Bridge and Flinders Street railway stations.
Postcard - Rose Stereograph Company, 'Looking over Prince's Bridge & the Yarra, Melbourne, Vic', c. 1939, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of State Library Victoria (Rose Series P.201)
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Courtesy of State Library Victoria (Rose Series P.201)
This postcard shows the site as it was in the 1930s, before the Princes Gate development (popularly known the Gas and Fuel Buildings) were constructed on this site in 1967.
Princes Bridge station operated from the east side of Swanston Street from 1859.
Photograph - John Kauffmann, 'The Street Corner', c. 1914, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of John Kauffmann and National Gallery of Victoria
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Courtesy of John Kauffmann and National Gallery of Victoria
Artistic interest in the intersection continued into the 20th century, especially after the completion of Flinders Street Station (1901-11) on the south-west corner.
Gelatin silver photograph 29.4 x 20.8 cm Purchased, 1992 PH211-1992
Painting - Frederick McCubbin, 'Arrival of the Duke and Duchess of York, Melbourne, 1901', 1908, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of Frederick McCubbin and National Gallery of Victoria
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Courtesy of Frederick McCubbin and National Gallery of Victoria
Over the decades, the Swanston Street and Flinders Street intersection has witnessed many important events in the life of Melbourne.
Most of the great Melbourne processions have passed through the intersection, including the Duke and Duchess of York and Cornwall, on their visit to Melbourne for the opening of the first parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia on 9 May 1901.
Oil on canvas (59.4 x 89.8 cm) Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the Government of Victoria, 1979 A25-1980
Painting - Henry Burn, 'Swanston Street from the Bridge', 1861, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of Henry Burn and National Gallery of Victoria
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Courtesy of Henry Burn and National Gallery of Victoria
Founded in 1835, Melbourne's development is richly recorded by artists working in many media. Henry Burn's view, painted a decade after the beginning of the gold rushes, shows the town in the process of becoming a bustling city.
Looking along the first Prince's Bridge (replaced with the present bridge in 1888), the Coroner's office and morgue can be seen on the future site of Federation Square.
oil on canvas 71.8 x 92.2 cm Gift of Mr John H. Connell, 1914 754-2
Painting - William Barak, 'Ceremony', 1890s, National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of William Barak and National Gallery of Victoria
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Courtesy of William Barak and National Gallery of Victoria
William Barak was a leader of the Wurundjeri, one of the groups of the East Kulin nation, the traditional owners of the lands now occupied by Federation Square.
Watercolour over pencil and charcoal on paper (57.6 x 43.8 cm) (image and sheet)
Gift of Michael and Traudl Moon, 1995 1995.43
Film - LAB Architecture Studio and Paul Carter, 'Mythform: the making of Nearamew', National Gallery of Victoria
Courtesy of LAB Architecture Studio ,Paul Carter and National Gallery of Victoria
Film - LAB Architecture Studio and Paul Carter, 'Mythform: the making of Nearamew', National Gallery of Victoria
What we're trying to do with this exhibition was both to reflect on the work that is in the plaza at Federation Square, and also, to create a new set of works that were particularly for the exhibition. So we separated the show into two parts. One was a design line, which shows all the early sketches and drawings for the work, and on the other hand, a set of new works which showed how the plaza itself could be transformed into a new kind of cultural message. We have created here, a large number of wall panels that are art works in their own right, and the idea is to try and capture the parasitic nature of the work on the plaza that is parasite, standing on one side off, which of course, the National Gallery itself does here.
And so we wanted to capture that double movement, a movement out into the plaza, and the art work there, and then away from the plaza, towards a future dialogue, between the institution and its physical setting. Myth forms and exhibition based on Nearamnew, the public art work which LAB Architecture Studio and I collaborated on. It's situated in the main plaza here at Federation Square. And myth form's an attempt to tell the story of how the artwork was made. Now, what's very unusual about the exhibition is that we've made available to the public the working drawings. And what you can see behind me here are just a small section of the early thoughts, really thinking drawings that we attempted to develop as part of working out the scope of the public artwork.
Now, the artwork itself is a retelling of the stories, of the making of the place where Federation Square now stands. We took this brief quite literally. We, or at least I, was very interested in the fact that one of the names for this part of Melbourne was [INAUDIBLE], which is a local word, that by the time it had been distorted in the white settler hearing, had turned into Nearamnew. We became very interested in the possibility of working with those letters-- quite literally, the sounds and the graphic inscription of those remains to create a graphic pattern that will begin to characterize this site uniquely.
One of the interesting things about showing some of the documentation for the project is that of course, you also see some of the dead ends. So behind me, we've got some extraordinary digital drawings that were done by the Lab Architecture Studio in the early days, when we had in mind to create word coils, boring right through the physical site, and then a whole set explorations of letter forms out of which we hope to make pathways, tracks for people as they walked along to tread. It gives you some idea of the material detail which characterized the early part.
This was going back now about three years. This was early 1999, and it gives you some sense of the research that we put into the project, and which was a unique function of the way that the collaboration's established between lab architecture and the public art program. This is an exhibit which is dedicated to the regional ground figures. The artwork's in three parts. There's a pattern that runs through the cobbles, and then there are nine figures in the ground. And the figures in the ground, also made out of the Kimberley Sandstone, tell the stories associated with the site.
And if we just look at this one here, you can probably make out the way in which there are large letters that form the components of the figure. So there's a letter "e" that establishes a tile shape there. And here, there's a large letter, "a." Now, "e" and "a" are two of the letters from the word, Nearamnew, which is the name of the art work. And in fact, all of the nine figures are different combinations of these letters of the name. So nine times over, in different combinations, we've named the site.
And then within that broad template of letters, we've laid in-- that's three different levels. And that's what these drawings show with their different colours. It's three different levels we've laid in the poetic text. And this particular one is called the migrant's vision, and as befits migrants, who arrive, of course, and make a very light imprint on the land. They've just arrived. So the carving is predominantly very, very lightly done, so the pale grey signifies that it's only a very, very light carving on the surface. And then these, of course, are tracks.
And so in this sense, we're trying to visualize, to give a pictorial or graphic equivalent of the story being told, the tracks of arrival, tracks of coincidence and crossing. It says, it might be one day, very like another, when a spot forms in the bud of morning. Is it a worm, Europe's canker, a rainbow at the age of the glass, and so on. And each of these crisscrossing lines develops the experience of the migrant on arriving in Australia. And I'm imagining them becoming part of a federal society as they begin to understand the ways in which different elements come together and form larger and larger organizations.
So they themselves find that they are immersed in the new society. So it's really a poem about belonging, and it forms one of nine such poems, for each of the regional ground figures is dedicated to a different vision.
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Courtesy of LAB Architecture Studio ,Paul Carter and National Gallery of Victoria
Artist Paul Carter discusses the process involved in creating his work Nearamew, a sandstone artwork that is a permanent feature of the Federation Square environment.
Victorian Collections acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and the traditional custodians of the lands
where we live, learn and work.