ckb_royal_exhibition_building

 Homepage | What is a landmark | Federation Square | Eureka Tower | Royal Exhibition Building | Shrine of Remembrance | Flinders St Station | Crown Casino | Survey | Mindmap | Bibliography | Reflections | Conclusion By Andrew ** Royal Exhibition Building ** Even though its history isn't very old, the Royal Exhibition Building has an exceptional past of special events. A very important highlight from its timeline is the opening of Federal Parliament. There were many more important events held in the Royal Exhibition Building. I am mostly focusing on the timeline of these events - Federation, decoration, restoration and a bit about the architecture of the building. Hope you enjoy my Wiki.

Timeline
Late 1800s – One of the richest gold rushes had taken place in Victoria which made Melbourne an extremely wealthy city. Now that Melbourne was one of the wealthiest cities in world, the Melbournians decided to host an international exhibition to show off all they had achieved. They wanted to become better known and to put their city on the world map. 1880 – The Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens were ready for the big international exhibition. The first exhibition in the Royal Exhibition Building took place, attracting about 1.3 million visitors over eight months. 1888 – An even larger exhibition - the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition - took place requiring temporary annexes to the north. They also installed electric lighting in the building. 1901 – On the 9th May the first Federal Parliament was opened at the Royal Exhibition Building. This was a very important event as it was the first time Australians met together as the Commonwealth of Australia. The western annex held the Parliament of Victoria until the 1920s while the Federal Parliament was held at the current state parliament building. 1901 – A competition for the official Australian flag was held. There were 33,000 entries. The Duke of York chose our flag which was flown for the first time on top of the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building. 1912 – The first motor show was held in the Royal Exhibition Building. 1919 – The Royal Exhibition Building was used as a hospital to nurse sick people suffering from the Spanish Influenza pandemic. 1936 – The first home show was held in the Royal Exhibition Building. 1939-1945 (2nd World War) - Trainee technicians from the Royal Air Force were billeted there and tried to sleep in the big echoing hall. Post 1945 – A migrant reception centre was established in the grounds surrounding the Royal Exhibition Building. 1950 – Eastern annex partly demolished and replaced in 1979 by a mirror fronted convention centre. 1953 – A major fire destroyed the aquarium and did £100,000 ($2,866,521.74 in today's money) worth of damage to the building. 1956 – The 1956 Olympic Games were held in the old stadium annex. The building of the stadium annex started in August and was completed in October 1956. The first match held in it was a basketball match between China, Formosa and South Korea. 1960 – Western annex was demolished. 1985 – Restoration work commenced. 1990 – Melbourne Museum built. 1994 – Restoration project completed. 2004 – The Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens were special enough to achieve World Heritage Listing. This is quite amazing because the building isn’t very old compared with some other buildings on the world heritage list, whose history extends into the medieval or even ancient times! The Royal Exhibition Building is still used today for many purposes. Many exams are held in the Royal Exhibition Building because it is a wonderfully big building for holding plenty of people and it isn’t hard to tell if someone makes a noise.

If you want to view some of these events compared with other events on this website, go to @http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/mcscbd2009

Opening day excitement
The Carlton Gardens and the Royal Exhibition Building opened on Friday 1st Oct 1880, ready for the big Melbourne International Exhibition. There was a huge amount of people on the streets of Melbourne watching the procession. The people who were invited to the exhibition had a lot of trouble getting there; they couldn't take the main roads of Melbourne. This was certainly an amazing event – especially for the Melbournians; the exhibition was there to show the amazing wealth of Melbourne and Victoria.

Opening of Federal Parliament
The opening of Federal Parliament and federation was held on 9th May 1901. The building held an audience of 12, 000 important people and their families which is more than any other building in Australia could hold at the time. The celebration was for two important reasons. These were the Federation of Australia and the opening of Federal Parliament. The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York were present.

The streets in Melbourne were decorated for people from all over Australia to join in the Celebrations of this important event. At the time, Edmund Barton was elected the first Prime Minister of Australia.

Embellishment
The joinery of the doors and windows were painted green in 1880 but the rendered walls were not. The building was painted in 1880 for the first time. As the years went by, the colour in the paint faded because of pollution from transport, such as trams and horses. The building was repainted several times in 20th century. The paintings and colour schemes on the inside of the building from the 1880 International Exhibition were replaced with a new colour scheme for the 1888 International Exhibition. The colour scheme was replaced again along with lots of decoration, just before the Federation of Australia and the opening of Federal Parliament. This was all John Ross Andersons responsibility.

For the opening of Federal Parliament, the painting underneath the dome represented the night sky. There are four special paintings underneath the dome. These are Dei gracia, by the grace of God; Carpe diem, seize the day; Aude sapere, dare to be wise; and Benigno numine, with benign power.
 * Dome**

The electric lighting was installed in 1888 for the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition. More than 60 miles of cables were used to allow the exhibitions to extend into the evening and night. This made the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition the first ever exhibition in the whole world to have night time viewings. For the celebrations of the Federation, they installed spectacular festoons of small lights. These have recently been recreated by using fibre optics and digital effects.
 * Lighting**

Restoration
During one of the exhibitions one of the cast iron bars or finials on top of a dormer balcony fell off and came through the roof. It nearly killed someone in the building and showed the need for extensive restoration. The restoration project started in 1985 and finished in 1994.

When the conservators inspected the internal paintwork they found four layers of paint on the ceiling and up to twenty five layers of paint on the lower walls and three main colour schemes. They decided to work with the 1901 colour scheme from Federation and the opening of parliament.

The restoration project restored the exterior and interior of the building. The first part of the project was the exterior of the building. Scaffolding had to be built over the building and around the dome. The decorator of the building, John Mather, agreed to David Mitchell, a builder that he will be responsible for the safety of the scaffolding. It took five months to build the scaffold. Not one bit of the 180 tonne scaffold touched the dome; all of the weight was supported by the rest of the building. It took three months to dismantle. They also built a scaffold inside the dome. They supported the bottom of the dome with a wooden beam to stop it collapsing inwards when they were working on it.

Design
The architect of the Royal Exhibition Building was Joseph Reed. His design of the dome was influenced by some Renaissance styles from Italy. The Royal Exhibition Building is the only standing great hall that has held a 19th century international exhibition. At the time it was built, the great hall was the highest building in Melbourne and the biggest building in Australia. The building used to have a balcony around the dome which you could view the city of Melbourne from but when it was restored, it had rotted away so they had to get rid of it.