Designing Culture: Melbourne Arts Precinct
Dive into the evolution and development of the Melbourne Arts Precinct. Join Open House Melbourne's Executive Director and architect Tania Davidge along with special guests as they share with you the architectural characteristics that have shaped this pocket of our city, and the significant project underway that will transform this iconic cultural precinct.
Approximate distance: 2km
Approximate duration: 2 hours
This tour will take you from the banks of the Birrarung, through to Fed Square and the Koorie Heritage Trust. From there, you will cross the river via Princes Bridge and continue past Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and the Theatres Building, as well as the NGV International. Crossing Southbank Boulevard, the tour heads to the Wilin Centre, before stopping on the corner of Southbank Boulevard and Dodds Street to hear about Buxton Contemporary and Southbank Theatre. Continuing through Dodds Street, you will stroll past the Stables before heading on to the Malthouse Theatre and ACCA. Turning to make your way along Sturt Street, you will stop outside the Ian Potter Southbank Centre before ending the tour on the corner outside the Melbourne Recital Centre.
About your tour guide
Tania Davidge is a design advocate, architect, writer and Executive Director at Open House Melbourne. She is passionate about communicating the importance of good design to public audiences in ways that encourage people to think more deeply about the issues that shape our cities.
Tania has extensive experience across architecture, urban design and strategic design. She has a PhD from the University of Melbourne focused on the development of creative strategies for engaging public audiences with architecture and the public realm and a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York.
Special guests
Brooke Wandin – Brooke Wandin is a Wurundjeri artist, educator and language worker. In her artistic practice Brooke explores the relationships between people and place through weaving, map-making and sound works containing woiwurrung. She has also developed and faciliated a range of cultural education programs, providing Wurundjeri cultural and historical education for preschool to tertiary students.
Katrina Sedgwick OAM – Katrina Sedgwick is the Director & CEO of Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation (MAP Co) which oversees the delivery of the $1.7 billion transformation of the Melbourne Arts Precinct, manages and operates Fed Square, and seeks to bring to life a single continuous art, civic, and cultural precinct stretching from Fed Square through Southbank.
Tom Mosby – Tom Mosby is a Torres Strait Islander from the Kulkalgal and Meriam Nations of the Central and Eastern Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait). With over 30 years’ experience as an art restorer, lawyer and senior executive, Tom is currently CEO of the Koorie Heritage Trust and oversaw the recent interior renovation of this space.
Tirki Onus – Tiriki Onus is a Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung artist, academic and filmmaker. Tiriki’s research specialism is in the histories and practices of Indigenous arts in south-eastern Australia. He currently holds the role of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous), as well as being the Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts in Cultural Development, and Co-Director of the Research Unit for Indigenous Arts and Cultures, in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne. Tiriki’s work fosters innovation in research, development, advocacy, representation and inclusion of Indigenous arts and cultural practices and practitioners in the academy.
Edge Terrace
The Melbourne Arts Precinct is situated on both sides of the Birrarung, the river of mists, on land that has been a site of gathering for Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people and neighbouring Kulin Nations for generations. We begin our tour by the banks of this river and Tania chats with Wurundjeri artist, researcher and language educator, Brooke Wandin, who shares what Birrarung means to her.
To best experience Brooke’s sound installation wurrung dhumbunganjinu (we speak language), start your tour outside The Edge theatre on Edge Terrace, looking out across Birrarung.
Swanston St/Flinders St
Fed Square is the gateway to the Melbourne Arts Precinct. Tania shares some of the unique aspects of this site’s architecture and speaks with Katrina Sedgwick, Director and CEO of MAP Co, about the role of the square within the precinct.
Fed Square also features in Stroll the City’s Designing Policy for People, City Secrets with Peter Maddison and 100 Years of Registered Architects.
Fed Square
With an interior fit-out originally designed in 2015 by Lyons and Greenaway Architects, in 2023 the Koorie Heritage Trust underwent an interior renovation. Working collaboratively with architects, Lyons, Architecture Associates and Greenaway Architects they delivered a design that expanded the footprint of the building and opened up more spaces to the public. Tania chats with Tom Mosby, CEO of the Koorie Heritage Trust about the important role of this cultural institution, and some of his favourite design features of the building’s interior.
St Kilda Road
It wouldn’t be a tour of the Melbourne Arts Precinct without reflecting on the buildings from which the precinct grew—the NGV International, and Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and Theatres Building. Tania discusses the history of this site and the vision of Roy Grounds, as well as the significant characteristics of these buildings.
We suggest meandering along St Kilda Road past these buildings as you listen and make your way towards our next stop, the Wilin Centre. For a deep dive into the NGV International listen to Jill Garner and Giorgio Marfella, as they discuss their favourite building in Melbourne.
In Designing Policy for People Jill Garner and Hamish Lyon talk more about this site and the Arts Centre Melbourne buildings. Recent redevelopments of Hamer Hall were led by ARM Architecture, who discuss this project and design characteristics of the NGV International on their Stroll the City tour.
Southbank Boulevard between St Kidla Rd and Dodds St
Here, we meet Tiriki Onus, Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, who shares with us the history of the centre, and chats with Tania about the centre’s new home in the former Victorian Police Depot and its beautiful garden.
You can learn more about The Wilin Centre in The University of Melbourne’s publication Dhoombak Goobgoowana A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne Volume 2: Voice and the chapter Returns Ablaze Arts-Based, Practice-Led Research and the Research Unit for Indigenous Arts and Cultures by Tiriki Onus and Sally Treloyn. Tiriki’s award-winning film Ablaze is also available to stream on ABC iview.
Corner of Southbank Boulevard and Dodds St
We continue along Southbank Boulevard to the corner of Dodds Street and the site of Buxton Contemporary and Southbank Theatre. Tania reflects on the changes that have been made to the public realm along Southbank Boulevard to improve and enliven the experience for the public.
Hear more about Southbank Theatre from the architects themselves on ARM Architecture’s tour.
Near 30 Dodds St
Wandering down Dodds Street through the heart of the University of Melbourne’s Southbank campus we stop to consider adaptive re-use of spaces and buildings. This is evident in the Dodds Street Park, a City of Melbourne initiative, and The Stables, a dramatic space rich with heritage character, transformed by KTA into world-class teaching, learning and performance facilities for the Victorian College of the Arts.
Central courtyard
Having crossed Grant Street, we make our way past Ron Robertson-Swann’s Vault, across the ACCA forecourt and into the courtyard space between ACCA and Malthouse Theatre. Tania shares some insights on the evolution of this site, and the relationship between the two buildings.
From Linear Park, near 43 Sturt Street
Continuing along Sturt Street we pause in a park designed by ASPECT Studios and consider the two buildings that frame the space – one small and one large, but both delightful – the end of trip facilities and café designed by Searle x Waldron, and The Ian Potter Southbank Centre, home of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, designed by Wardle Architects.
31 Sturt Street
We pause outside the famous honeycomb design of the Melbourne Recital Centre (MRC) on the corner of Southbank Boulevard and Sturt Street and reflect on the different approaches to design and architecture offered by the buildings of this tour and how the design characteristics of the Melbourne Recital Centre make it a sanctuary for sound.
If you find yourself inside the MRC, head to ARM Architecture’s tour of Elisabeth Murdoch Hall to learn about the acoustic design of this incredible space.
Corner of Southbank Boulevard and Sturt St toward NGV
As the last stop on our tour, from outside the Melbourne Recital Centre we look across Southbank Boulevard and to the future of the precinct. We’re joined again by Katrina Sedgwick, Director and CEO of MAP Co, the organisation overseeing the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation Project and the delivery of three significant initiatives. The Fox: NGV Contemporary, designed by Angelo Candelapas & Associates will be a stunning new landmark which celebrates the central role of art and design in contemporary life. Working with NH Architecture, Arts Centre Melbourne will also see significant improvements within its State Theatre auditorium, back-of-house experience, loading dock and more. Connecting these two packages of the transformation project is Laak Boorndap. Designed by HASSELL and New York’s SO-IL, this team is working with internationally renowned horticulturalists Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough, and local plant expert Jac Semmler of Super Bloom to deliver an 18,000 sqm densely planted, multi-layered garden for people, art and performance.
This is the final stop on Designing Culture: Melbourne Arts Precinct. Continue Strolling the City here.
Many thanks to Tania Davidge for hosting this tour and guest speakers Brooke Wandin, Katrina Sedgwick, Tom Mosby and Tiriki Onus for joining us. This tour was presented in partnership with Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation.
