Federation Square
Federation Square is a venue for arts, culture and public events on the edge of the Melbourne central business district. It covers an area of at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets built above busy railway lines and across the road from Flinders Street station. It incorporates major cultural institutions such as the Ian Potter Centre, Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Koorie Heritage Trust as well as cafes and bars in a series of buildings centred around a large paved square, and a glass walled atrium.
History
Background
Melbourne's central city grid was originally designed without a central public square, long seen as a missing element. From the 1920s there were proposals to roof the railway yards on the southeast corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets for a public square, with more detailed proposals prepared in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, the Melbourne City Council decided that the best place for the City Square was the corner of Swanston and Collins Streets, opposite the town hall. The first temporary square opened in 1968, and a permanent version opened in 1981. It was however not considered a great success, and was redeveloped in the 1990s as a smaller, simpler space in front of a new large hotel.Meanwhile, in the late 1960s, a small part of the railway lines had been partly roofed by the construction of the Princes Gate Towers, colloquially known as the "Gas & Fuel Buildings" after their major tenant, the Gas and Fuel Corporation, over the old Princes Bridge station. This included a plaza on the corner, which was elevated above the street and little used. Between the plaza and Batman Avenue, which ran along the north bank of the Yarra River, were the extensive Jolimont Railway Yards, and the through train lines running into Flinders Street station under Swanston Street.
In 1978 the idea of roofing the railyards was again proposed as part of a State Government competition for a landmark, asking for “an idea, a word, image or plan” to put Melbourne on the map. It drew 2300 entries, but no winner was declared.
Design competition and controversy
In 1996 the Premier Jeff Kennett announced that the Gas & Fuel Buildings would be demolished, and the railyards roofed, and a complex including arts facilities and a large public space would be built. It was to be named Federation Square, and opened in time to celebrate the centenary of Australia's Federation in 2001, and would include performing arts facilities, a gallery, a cinemedia centre, the public space, a glazed wintergarden, and ancillary cafe and retail spaces. An architectural design competition was announced that received 177 entries from around the world. Five designs were shortlisted, which included entries from high-profile Melbourne architects Denton Corker Marshall and Ashton Raggatt McDougall, and lesser known Sydney architect Chris Elliott, and London based architects Jenny Lowe and Adrian Hawker. The jury was chaired by Professor Neville Quarry. The winner announced on 28 July 1997, a consortium led by Lab Architecture Studio directed by Donald Bates and Peter Davidson from London, with the Dutch landscape architects Karres en Brands, directed by Sylvia Karres and Bart Brands, teamed with local executive architects Bates Smart for the second stage.The design, originally costed at between $110 and $150 million, was complex and irregular, with gently angled 'cranked' geometries predominating in both the planning and the facade treatment of the various buildings and the wintergardens that surrounded and defined the open spaces. A series of 'shards' provided vertical accents, while interconnected laneways and stairways and the wintergarden would connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River. The open square was arranged as a gently sloping amphitheatre, focussed on a large viewing screen for public events, with a secondary sloped plaza area on the main corner. The design was widely supported by the design community but was less popular with the public. The design was also soon criticised when it was realised that the western freestanding 'shard' would block views of the south front of St Paul's Cathedral from Princes Bridge.
The mix of occupants and tenants were soon modified, with the cinemedia centre becoming the new body known as ACMI, offices for multicultural broadcaster SBS added, and the gallery space becoming the Australian art wing of the National Gallery of Victoria, which became the Ian Potter Centre. The performance arts space was dropped, the number of commercial tenancies increased, and the south end of the Atrium became an auditorium. A new substantially rearranged design incorporating the new program was revealed in late 1998.
Construction
After the 1999 state election, while construction was well underway, the incoming Bracks Government ordered a report by the University of Melbourne's Professor Evan Walker into the 'western shard' to be located on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets, which concluded in February 2000 that the "heritage vista" towards St Paul's cathedral should be preserved, and the shard be no more than 8m in height.Budgets on the project blew out significantly due to the initial cost being seriously underestimated, given the expense of covering the railyards, changes to the brief, the need to resolve construction methods for the angular design, and the long delays. Among measures taken to cut costs was concreting areas originally designed for paving.
The final cost of construction was approximately $467 million, the main funding primarily from the state government, with $64 million from the City of Melbourne, some from the federal government, while private operators and sponsors paid for fitouts or naming rights.
The square was opened on 26 October 2002. Unlike many Australian landmarks, it was not opened by the reigning monarch, Elizabeth II, nor was she invited to its unveiling; she visited Federation Square in October 2011.
Further expansion
In 2006, Federation Wharf redeveloped the vaults under Princes Walk into a large bar, with extensive outdoor areas on the Yarra riverbank, with elevator access to Federation Square.Several proposals have been prepared for the area known as Federation Square East, the remaining area of railyards to the east. There have been proposals for office towers and, more recently, a combination of open space and a hotel, or another campus for the National Gallery of Victoria to house their contemporary art collection.
Apple Store
In December 2017, the Andrews government announced that one of the buildings of the square, the Birrarung Building, would be demolished to make way for a freestanding Apple Store, generating strong criticism over the commercial use of a cultural space. Opposition groups including and the National Trust of Australia then nominated Fed Square to the Victorian Heritage Register, which resulted in an interim decision to list in October 2018. Apple cancelled the plans in April 2019 after the application to Heritage Victoria to demolish the Birrarung Building was denied, and after a hearing, the square was formally listed in August 2019.Metro Entrance
With the construction of the upcoming Melbourne Metro Tunnel, an entrance to the underground Town Hall station from the corner of Federation Square was proposed, with a design released in December 2018 that would replace the corner Information Centre. After the heritage listing of the square, a permit was sought to demolish the building and the plaza around it, which was granted on the basis that the Information Centre was not the original design for the 'Western Shard', and it was demolished by January 2019, though without a final approved design for the new entrance.Later Developments
In early 2022, following the decision to build a new National Gallery Victoria Contemporary behind the NGV, with a linear public space connection through to St Kilda Road, the State Government established the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation to manage the delivery of the new park, the management of Federation Square, and to better connect the various arts institutions in Southbank to each other and through to the CBD.In October 2023 the Age newspaper ran a series of articles on the square, providing a range of opinions on its strengths and weaknesses. The failure of many cafes and shops over the years was noted, as well as the rough surface affecting mobility, the lack of shade, and the lack of clear paths through the site, concluding that the square was still a 'work in progress'.
Location and layout
Federation Square occupies roughly a whole urban block bounded by Swanston, Flinders, and Russell Streets and the Yarra River. The open public square is directly opposite Flinders Street station and St Paul's Cathedral. The layout of the precinct is designed to connect the historical central district of the city with the Yarra River and a new park Birrarung Marr.Design features
Square
The complex of buildings forms a rough U-shape around the main open-air square, oriented to the west. The eastern end of the square is formed by the glazed walls of The Atrium. While bluestone is used for the majority of the paving in the Atrium and St Paul's Court, matching footpaths elsewhere in central Melbourne, the main square is paved in 470,000 ochre-coloured sandstone blocks from Western Australia and invokes images of the outback. The paving is designed as a huge urban artwork, called Nearamnew, by Paul Carter and gently rises above street level, containing a number of textual pieces inlaid in its undulating surface.There are a small number of landscaped sections in the square and plaza which are planted with Eucalyptus trees.