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Federation Square

Opened belatedly in 2002 to commemorate the centenary of Federation in the preceding year, and costing over $400 million, Federation Square is a striking assemblage of cultural institutions, commercial buildings and performance spaces, constructed on decking over part of the Jolimont Railway Yards at the south-east corner of Swanston and Flinders streets. The complex is home to the National Gallery of Victoria's Ian Potter Centre, Australian Racing Museum and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and boasts a city square paved with strikingly coloured Kimberley sandstone and accommodating up to 15 000 people.

In the foundation and early settlement years, the site had been reserved for public purposes. Enclosed by post-and-rail fences, it was a low-lying swampy paddock sloping down to the Yarra River and a lagoon filled by river overflow. An 1854 building on the site was for a time occupied by the City Coroner and Registrar's Office, and from 1859 Princes Bridge station on the east side of Swanston Street became the terminus for various suburban railway lines. Despite the completion of the new Flinders Street Station in 1910, ever-increasing suburban railway traffic kept Princes Bridge station in use. From 1967 the Gas and Fuel Buildings severed the link between Flinders Street and the river. Long regarded as an eyesore, they were demolished in 1996-97.

In 1996 a preliminary Federation Square design brief offered competition entrants the opportunity to produce plans that would highlight the site's fundamental importance as a place of civic celebration and public interaction. The site was conceived in the context of a Federation 'arc' embracing buildings and sites associated with Australian Federation: the Old Treasury, Treasury Gardens, Parliament House and Royal Exhibition Building. Five of the 177 entries received were short-listed, with the winner being announced in July 1997 by then premier Jeff Kennett and the lord mayor of Melbourne, Councillor Ivan Deveson. The seven-member judging panel, chaired by Professor Neville Quarry, praised the winning design of Lab Architecture Studio (London) and Bates Smart Architects (Australia): 'The winning scheme draws its inspiration from the unique urban characteristics of Melbourne's arcades and lanes and transforms these elements into a new form of organisation, celebrating the city'.

The 3.2-hectare development integrated public spaces, a transport hub, and tourist and civic facilities. Buildings and open space defined a precinct stretching from Swanston Street to Melbourne Park. The announcement of the winning design in 1997 was followed by public controversy about the height and siting of towers on the north-west corner of the square. The National Trust and some members of the Melbourne City Council defended the view of St Paul's Cathedral from Princes Bridge, and in the final design released in June 1998 the towers were realigned and reduced in height by 2 m.

However, concerns about the 'shards' and the general management of the project remained. After several reports and inquiries, and political intervention during 2000, the State Government announced that the controversial western shard would be replaced by a lower structure, no higher than 8 m, and that a management company, Federation Square Management Pty Ltd, would be established to oversee the development of the project and operate Federation Square in perpetuity.

Sited at the city grid's southern gateway, at a central node of road, rail and river, Federation Square is redolent with history and inherited meaning. The fractured geometry of its architecture and the triangular façade panels of its buildings - rendered in sandstone, glass and zinc - are either loved or loathed, and the publicness of some of its 'public' space is ambiguous. But obsessive debate over its architectural merit has not detracted from the reality that the square has provided a new focus for city visitors, consolidated facilities in Melbourne's central arts precinct and furnished the city with a new site for public assembly.

Andrew May

References
Brown-May, Andrew, and Norman Day, Federation Square, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2003. Details