Royal Exhibition Centre (Melbourne)

Brief Information

The building, constructed for an international exhibition, also managed to serve as the ceremonial hall of young Australian statehood. The Royal Exhibition Building was completed in 1880 for the Melbourne International Exhibition, but the most significant turn in its history came on May 9, 1901: the first Parliament of Australia was opened here and the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. After the ceremony, the federal government moved into the Parliament of Victoria, while the government of Victoria occupied the exhibition building for 26 years.

The building’s main idea is expressed through scale and form: inside is the Great Hall, covering more than 12,000 m², with smaller rooms nearby, and above everything rises a dome that is believed to have been modeled on the cathedral in Florence. In 2004, the building, together with the Carlton Gardens, became the first building in Australia to receive UNESCO World Heritage status.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to compare three things: the Great Hall, the dome, and the relationship to the other parts of the complex. The Great Hall explains the building’s original purpose: this space was designed for large exhibitions, so not only the facade matters, but also the interior capacity. The dome adds another scale: the exhibition pavilion was deliberately given a form associated with European monumental architecture, rather than with a temporary fairground structure.

It is also worth keeping in mind the boundaries of the preserved building. The source states directly that one annex burned down in 1953, and the Great Ballroom was demolished in 1979. So the present site is important not as a completely untouched complex, but as the surviving main building around which a later struggle for preservation developed. Its proximity to the Melbourne Museum also changes the perspective: the exhibition building itself is considered the largest object in the collection of Museums Victoria.