A FESTIVAL OF MELBOURNE
When Brett Sheehy first arrived to lead Melbourne Festival,
he was struck by how much Melburnians own their arts.
/ a festival of melbourne
“
As Melbourne has
morphed over the
decades, so too has
the Festival.
”
43
A ‘taxi-driver test’ showed him that everyone considered the arts and
culture important to their city, even if they weren’t the type to go themselves.
Within the famous Melbourne grid lies the State Library of Victoria,
the city’s magnificent heritage theatres and numerous art galleries, which
offer an intoxicating mix of cultural options made even more enticing by a
thriving restaurant and bar scene and framed on its southeastern side by
an equally character-defining sports precinct.
Further to the west on the southern edge sits Federation Square,
which from 2002 has become the meeting place for Melburnians. It is the
location for a multitude of culturally diverse festivals and events, and is
home to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the Koorie Heritage
Trust, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and SBS, as well as housing the
administrative headquarters of Melbourne Festival.
The seed for what has become an unparalleled arts precinct was
planted when the National Gallery of Victoria moved to new premises, the
modernist Roy Grounds building on St Kilda Road, just over the bridge from
the CBD, in 1968.
Today, the precinct stretches from Federation Square to the
Melbourne Theatre Company’s offices in Sturt Street. Along the way it
takes in Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Recital Centre, Mel