Description

For thousands of years, the land around Birrarung (the Yarra River) has been Melbourne’s meeting place—an area of cultural significance for First Peoples and a place of creative expression. Today the site is home to the Melbourne Arts Precinct, a continuous arts, civic, and cultural precinct stretching from Fed Square through to Southbank.

Since opening in 2002, Fed Square has been recognised as Melbourne’s town square—the civic, cultural and community heart of the city. The Square is Melbourne’s premier meeting place, tourist destination and event venue for hundreds of arts, community and cultural programs a year, surprising and delighting over 11 million visitors of all ages with a rich tapestry of year-round free festivals, talks and events.

The site on which Fed Square is built has an expansive history that includes being used as a morgue, a fish market and a railway station. In 1997, London-based Lab Architecture Studio, in association with Melbourne architects Bates Smart, were appointed to design the city’s public square. In 2019, Fed Square was listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, the youngest building in Australia to ever be recognised in this way.

Fed Square is home to four important cultural tenants: ACMI, the Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT), MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) and the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.

What's On

This behind-the-scenes tour will provide participants with the opportunity to go back of house at Fed Square to underground areas normally closed to the public.

Visit the hidden network of tunnels and labyrinth maze underneath the Square, and learn all about the history of Fed Square’s unique architecture and design features.

The tour will also visit the Test Garden, a window into the naturalistic planting style of future urban garden Laak Boorndap (part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation). 

A booking fee waiver for this program is made possible thanks to the Melbourne Arts Precinct.