Melbourne Museum

The museum was opened in 2000 as a project of the Government of Victoria, on behalf of Museums Victoria who administrates the venue. Melbourne museum is a rich response to Melbourne's urban condition, and provides a place for education, history, culture and society to engage with each other in a contemporary setting. It is now an important part of Melbourne's soft infrastructure and is consistently ranked as one of the most popular museums and tourist attractions in Australia, winning 'Best Tourist Attraction' at the Australian Tourism Awards in 2011. In addition to its galleries, the museum features spaces such as Curious?, which is a place to meet staff and find answers relating to the collections, research and behind-the-scenes work of Museums Victoria; as well as a cafe and a gift shop.

The Melbourne Museum is a post-modernist building designed by Denton Corker Marshall Architects. Construction was managed by Baulderstone Hornibrook and completed in 2001, with the museum's official opening in 2000.

The building features a grid-like order that embraces eccentric metal clad forms extruding out and creating an irregular sculptural composition with moments of abstract colour throughout the building. The museum is arranged in an individual layout, referencing Melbourne's iconic Hoddle Grid, which allows the importance of each component of the buildings historical, cultural and social significance to be read in loosely equal hierarchy and individuality.[7] The building can be dissected into different spaces so an individual can navigate through and around the building in an orthogonal manner. It is designed as both a single building and a network of individual buildings integrated into the landscape of the Carlton Gardens.[8]

The museum is axially aligned with the adjacent Italianate Royal Exhibition Building and references it, along with the skyscrapers of Melbourne's central business district, with its monumental scale and protruding vertical facets. The sticks and blades that make up the Melbourne Museum are hallmarks of Denton Corker Marshall's architecture.

The most prominent element of the building are the two very long, very high, sloping canopies (or blades) that rise up from the centrally placed entrance opposite the north door of the Royal Exhibition Building; each act to guide visitors from the street into the Museum.

On the northern side of the building another larger blade-like roof rises up from the centre to the north, a landmark of similar scale to the central Florentine dome of the Royal Exhibition building.

Located in: Carlton Gardens
Address: 11 Nicholson St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
Hours: Open now
Tickets: free · museumsvictoria.com.au
Founded: 1854