1.
Southbank, Victoria
–
Southbank is an inner urban neighbourhood of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,1 km south of Melbournes central business district. Its local government area are the Cities of Melbourne and Port Phillip, at the 2011 Census, Southbank had a population of 11,235. Its northernmost area is considered part of the Central Business District, Southbank is bordered to the north by the Yarra River, and to the east by St Kilda Road. Southbanks southern and western borders are bounded by Dorcas Street, Kings Way, Southbank was formerly an industrial area and part of South Melbourne. It was transformed into a populated district of high rise apartment and office buildings beginning in the early 1990s. With the exceptions of the precinct along St Kilda Road. Today, Southbank is dominated by high-rise development and it is also one of the most densely populated areas of Melbourne, with a large cluster of apartment towers, including Australias tallest tower measured to its highest floor, the Eureka Tower. Southbank Promenade and Southgate Restaurant and Shopping Precinct, on the bank of the Yarra River. Southgates landmark Ophelia sculpture by Deborah Halpern has been used to represent Melbourne in tourism campaigns, before European settlement, the area now called South Melbourne was a series of low lying swamps inhabited by Aboriginal tribes. The Arts Centre precinct opened in the 1980s on former parkland, the area was the subject of urban renewal in the 1980s and early 1990s. In part, this was aimed at stimulating development in a period when Melbourne was experiencing an economic downturn during the global recession on 1991–92. Denton Corker Marshall designed and oversaw the original Southbank Promenade in 1990, at the eastern end of the area is the Victorian Arts Centre. Since then, the pylon underneath the award winning Southbank Pedestrian Bridge has been utilised and is now home to Ponyfish Island, further buildings including the Esso headquarters were built between 1992 and 1995. Development expanded along the Yarra westward, with the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in 1996 and Crown Casino in 1997, Clarendon Towers also attracted the owner occupiers. Beginning with Southbank Towers in 1997, Central Equity began a swathe of apartment towers, in 2002 the neighbouring Yarras Edge precinct of the new Melbourne Docklands began to kick off. The arts precinct was extended with the construction of the award winning buildings for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in 2002, at around the same time a new headquarters for the State Emergency Service was built. Central Equity apartments are aimed at both the owner occupier and rental market with management provided by Melbourne Inner City Management, an owned subsidiary of Central Equity. With a boom in apartment building and the success of the Melburnian, the 91 floor Eureka Tower was begun in 2002, aimed at being the tallest residential tower in the world and was completed in 2006
2.
Roy Grounds
–
Sir Roy Burman Grounds was one of Australias leading architects of the modern movement. Born in Melbourne, Grounds was educated at Scotch College and then the University of Melbourne, on his return to Australia, Grounds went into partnership with Geoffrey Mewton, and they introduced the international style to Melbourne. Grounds ended this partnership in 1936 and travelled in England until 1939, Grounds practised by himself between 1939 and 1942 and designed a series of houses and flats which established his reputation. After the war, Grounds was involved in setting up the curriculum for the School of Architecture at Melbourne University and he resumed his architectural practice and became interested in formal, geometrically based designs. When Grounds, Frederick Romberg and Robin Boyd formed their partnership in 1953 all were established in Victoria. Each brought substantial work to the practice and the firm became very successful, Grounds first large commission was for the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra. The construction of its reinforced concrete dome was a technical achievement. Opened in 1959, it won the Meritorious Architecture Award of the Canberra Area Committee of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, the Academy building also led to other work in Canberra, initially for the firm and later Grounds himself. Grounds opened a Canberra office in the Forrest Townhouses, which he partly financed, in 1959 the firm was awarded the commission to design the National Gallery of Victoria and Arts Centre, with Grounds named in the contract as the architect in charge. When Boyd and Romberg were mildly critical of the geometric designs that Grounds showed them. In 1962 Grounds left the partnership, taking the commission with him, under a building committee chaired by the philanthropist Ken Myer, he devoted the next twenty years of his life to the completion of the Arts Centre. His longest-serving architectural associates throughout this period, which included Monash Universitys Robert Blackwood Hall, were Alan Nelson, Fritz Suendermann, Lou Gerhardt and Allan Stillman. While the Gallery was brought in on time and budget, the complicated Yarra River site for the Concert Hall and Theatre Complex resulted in building delays, Grounds showed Queen Elizabeth II the massive excavations shortly before his death. Much of the interior designs were completed by John Truscott. Grounds was awarded the RAIA Gold Medal in 1968 and knighted in 1969, in 1969 he was elected a life fellow of the RAIA. One of his last great design successes was Hobarts iconic 18-story octagonal tower that is the part of the Wrest Point Hotel Casino complex. He died in Melbourne in 1981, in 2010, an original Grounds plan for a library was completed at the Moorilla Estate and entrance for the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania
3.
Theatre
–
The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence, the specific place of the performance is also named by the word theatre as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι. Modern theatre, broadly defined, includes performances of plays and musical theatre, there are connections between theatre and the art forms of ballet, opera and various other forms. The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated, participation in the city-states many festivals—and mandatory attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member in particular—was an important part of citizenship. The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism and theatre architecture, Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play, the origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle, the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus. The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10, the stage consisted of a dancing floor, dressing room and scene-building area. Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics, the actors wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institution alised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus. As contestants in the City Dionysias competition playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays, the performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE, official records begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced. More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics, Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the surviving plays of Aristophanes. New Comedy is known primarily from the papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus, the satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyrs themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal companions, often engaging in drunken revelry
4.
Melbourne
–
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
5.
Victoria (Australia)
–
Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
6.
National Gallery of Victoria
–
The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australias oldest, largest and most visited art museum, the St Kilda Road building, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, opened in 1968, and was redeveloped by Mario Bellini before reopening in 2003. It houses the international art collection and is on the Victorian Heritage Register. Designed by Lab Architecture Studio, the Ian Potter Centre opened in 2002, further money was set aside in the early 1860s for the establishment of the first National Gallery. On 24 May 1874, the first purpose built gallery, known as the McArthur Gallery, was opened in the McArthur room of the State Library, the undressed box was only ever intended as a temporary home until the much grander vision was to be realised. However such an edifice did not eventuate and the complex was instead developed incrementally over several decades, the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the gallery, was founded in 1867 and remained the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910. The Schools graduates went on to some of Australias most significant artists. In 1887, the Buvelot Gallery was opened, along with the Painting School studios, in 1892, two more galleries were added, Stawell and La Trobe. The gallerys collection was built from both gifts of works of art and monetary donations, the most significant, the Felton Bequest, was established by the will of Alfred Felton and from 1904, has been used to purchase over 15,000 works of art. £3 million was put forward in February 1960 and Roy Grounds was announced as the architect, in 1962, Roy Grounds split from his partners Frederick Romberg and Robin Boyd, retained the commission, and designed the gallery at 180 St Kilda Road. By 1967, the new $14 million complex began to take shape, and the gallery was finally relocated to the new building in the summer of 1967-1968. The new bluestone clad building was opened on Tuesday 20 August 1968 by Victorian premier Henry Bolte. In 1999, redevelopment of the building was proposed, with Mario Bellini chosen as architect, the proposal was to leave the original architectural fabric intact including the exterior facade and Leonard French stained glass ceiling, but to significantly modernise the spaces. During the redevelopment, many works were moved to a temporary external annex known as NGV on Russell, at the State Library with its entrance on Russell Street. NGV on Russell closed on 30 June 2002 to make way for the opening of the new St Kilda Road gallery. The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia was designed by Lab Architecture Studio, the NGVs Australian art collection encompasses Indigenous art and artefacts, Australian colonial art, Australian Impressionist art, 20th century, modern and contemporary art. The NGV houses many of the most recognisable Australian paintings, including Frederick McCubbins The Pioneer, phillips Fox, John Glover, Eugene von Guerard, Hans Heysen, George W. A large number of works were donated by Dr. Joseph Brown in 2004 which form the Joseph Brown Collection, in 2011 the NGV celebrated its 150th birthday and acquired an important painting by Correggio
7.
St Kilda Road, Melbourne
–
St Kilda Road is a street in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is part of the locality of Melbourne which has the postcode of 3004, the road continues as Brighton Road, which becomes Nepean Highway, forming a major arterial connecting the bayside suburbs and Mornington Peninsula to the city. The first sale of Crown lands in St. Kilda took place on 7 December 1842, within a few years, St Kilda became a fashionable area for wealthy settlers, with the high ground above the beach offering a cool fresh breeze during Melbournes hot summer months. St Kilda Road was a track that linked St Kilda to the town centre. The road was impassable by carriage after rains, which turned the road to mud, prior to the building of the first bridge spanning the Yarra River in 1844, traffic crossed the river by privately operated punts. In 1844, a privately built wooden trestle bridge was built across the river at Swanston Street. In 1850, a government-built sandstone free bridge replaced the wooden bridge, in 1853, the Immigrants Aid Society established the Immigrants Home in St Kilda Road, which accommodated neglected and orphaned children and also had a reformatory for children. The Home existed until 1902 when it became the Melbourne Hospital site, in 1854, Kings Domain garden was established. In the same year the government offered four religious groups land on which to build schools and it offered the Wesleyan Methodist Church 10 acres facing St Kilda Road. It took a while to find sufficient funds to build the actual school, the foundation stone of Wesley College was laid on 4 January 1865 and the school was officially opened on 11 January 1866. In 1855, the government granted 15 acres on St Kilda Road to the Anglican Church on which Melbourne Grammar School was built, the foundation stone was laid on 30 July 1856 and the school was officially opened on 7 April 1858. During the early 1850s, St Kilda Road was the scene of frequent hold-ups by armed bandits, Victoria Barracks were built between 1856 and 1872. In the 1860s, St Kilda was a major bayside resort village, St Kilda Road was a main arterial connecting it with Melbourne, and was planned as a wide European-style boulevard to accommodate horse-drawn traffic. Fawkner Park was created in 1862, the Alfred Hospital was established in 1871. From the 1870s, some of Melbournes wealthiest residents erected grand mansions on significant lots along the street, in 1877, Cooper and Baileys Great American International Circus set up on the site of the present Arts Centre. The present Princes Bridge was built in 1888 to replace the 1850 structure, at this time, the beautiful elm trees were planted along the road. The Prince Henrys Hospital was opened in St Kilda Road in 1885, until the end of the 19th century, the Yarra River was subject to regular flooding. A new channel for the Yarra River was dug from 1896 to 1900 to straighten and widen the river, the spoil was used to fill the swampy lagoons and brickmakers pits and raise the height of the river bank where Alexandra Gardens now stands
8.
Flinders Street railway station
–
Flinders Street railway station is a railway station on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets in Melbourne, Australia. It serves the metropolitan rail network. Backing onto the city reach of the Yarra River in the heart of the city, Flinders Street is served by Metros suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland. It is the busiest station on Melbournes metropolitan network and the busiest railway station in Australia and it was the first railway station in an Australian city and the worlds busiest passenger station in the late 1920s. The main station building, completed in 1909, is an icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbournes busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbournes few pedestrian scrambles. The first railway station to occupy the Flinders Street site was called Melbourne Terminus and it was opened on 12 September 1854 by the Lieutenant-Governor, Charles Hotham. The terminus was the first city railway station in Australia, and it travelled to Sandridge, over the now redeveloped Sandridge Bridge, travelling along the now light rail Port Melbourne line. The first terminus had a single platform 30 metres long, and was located beside the Fish Market building on the south-west corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets. An additional platform was provided in 1877, along with two bridges to provide passenger access, followed by additional timber and corrugated iron buildings. The first signal boxes were opened at the station in 1883, by the 1890s a third island platform had been constructed. Melbournes two other early central-city stations, Spencer Street and Princes Bridge, opened in 1859, Princes Bridge was originally separated from Flinders Street, even though it was only on the opposite side of Swanston Street. Once the railway line was extended under the street in 1865 to join the two, Princes Bridge was closed and it was not reopened until April 1879, and from 1909 slowly became amalgamated into Flinders Street. Federation Square now occupies its site, up until the 1880s a number of designs for a new station had been prepared, but none ever went any further. In 1882, the government decided to build a new passenger station to replace the existing ad-hoc construction. A design competition was held in 1899 with 17 entries received. The train shed over the platforms was intended to have arched roofs running north-south. Work began in 1900 on the rearrangement of the station tracks, work on the central pedestrian subway started in 1901, with the foundations of the main building completed by 1903
9.
Orchestra
–
The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, also plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings. The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may also be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but also the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions. Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, heckelphone, flugelhorn, cornet, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
10.
Premier of Victoria
–
The Premier of Victoria is the leader of the government in the Australian state of Victoria. The Premier is appointed by the Governor of Victoria, and is the leader of the party able to secure a majority in the Legislative Assembly. Responsible government came to the colony of Victoria in 1855, between 1856 and 1892, the head of the government was commonly called the Premier or the Prime Minister, but neither title had any legal basis. The head of government always held another portfolio, usually Chief Secretary or Treasurer, the first head of government to hold the title of Premier without holding another portfolio was William Shiels in 1892. The incumbent Premier of Victoria since the 2014 election is Daniel Andrews of the Australian Labor Party, as of September 2016, six former premiers are alive, the oldest being John Cain. The most recent premier to die was Joan Kirner, on 1 June 2015, department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria Deputy Premier of Victoria List of Premiers of Victoria by time in office ABC News - Premiers of Victoria
Media related to Arts Centre Melbourne at Wikimedia Commons