Melbourne Museum Walking Tour

Architect/Year
Denton Corker Marshall, 2001

The Melbourne Museum by Denton Corker Marshall (DCM) was selected in an open design competition held in 1994 that attracted 109 entries from Australia and overseas. The building sits beside the world heritage listed 1880’s Royal Exhibition Building, within the Carlton Gardens.

Externally, the complex is formally held together by a structuring grid, reflective of Hoddle’s city grid. Within the grid, the IMAX cinema and Touring Exhibition Hall are expressed as dynamic, tumbling, metal-clad boxes breaking out of the framework. Two grand canopies address both street frontages, whilst maintaining the axial composition of the Exhibition Building and the Carlton Gardens.

The Forest Gallery, a tree-filled outdoor exhibition space fully enclosed by mesh, features a large roof canopy that projects northwards above the roof line of the complex. This dynamic element establishes a parity of height and scale with the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building. The sticks and blades that make up the Melbourne Museum are signatures of Denton Corker Marshall’s architecture. It won the RAIA (Vic Chapter) Victorian Architecture Medal and the National Award for Public Buildings in 2001.

Photographic Credit
photo sourced from Wikipedia: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos