The Open House Melbourne Weekend has arrived! On Saturday July 29th and Sunday 30th, 200 iconic buildings will open to the public, 87 of which are in the central city area of Melbourne (making for the architecture/history buff’s dream walking tour!).
This wonderful cultural event aims to empower Melbournians to be active participants in the building of their city, and to explore, first-hand, the challenges and success stories of our built environment.
As the event celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2017, over 80 new buildings being have been added to the program. ‘We have so many architectural gems in Melbourne which help to give our city its unique character,’ said Lord Mayor of Melbourne Robert Doyle AC. ‘Among them is the grand Melbourne Town Hall and Melbourne City Baths, as well as the environmentally friendly Council House 2 and repurposed historic spaces like the SIGNAL creative studio’ – the latter of which is the last surviving signal box of Flinders Street Station!
Inner-city highlights include: New Academic Street, the first public launch of the redevelopment of RMIT University’s City Campus by a team of architects including Lyons, MvS Architects, NMBW Architects, Harrison and White, and Maddison Architects; the only surviving Melbourne example of a single-storey worker’s cottage from the early 1860s at 17 Casselden Place; KPMG’s ‘Workplace of the Future’ at Collins Square; and one of Melbourne’s earliest examples of Classical Revival architecture, The Mail Exchange on Bourke Street.
To discover other iconic buildings you can visit all across Melbourne this weekend (some bookings required) , and to find out more about associated talks and workshops, visit the Open House Melbourne website, here.
