Background Melbourne's central city grid was originally designed without a central public square, long seen as a missing element. From the 1920s there were proposals to roof the railway yards on the southeast corner of
Flinders and
Swanston Streets for a public square, with more detailed proposals prepared in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, the
Melbourne City Council decided that the best place for the
City Square was the corner of Swanston and
Collins Streets, opposite the town hall. The first temporary square opened in 1968, and a permanent version opened in 1981. It was however not considered a great success, and was redeveloped in the 1990s as a smaller, simpler space in front of a new large hotel. Meanwhile, in the late 1960s, a small part of the railway lines had been partly roofed by the construction of the
Princes Gate Towers, colloquially known as the "Gas & Fuel Buildings" after their major tenant, the
Gas and Fuel Corporation, over the old
Princes Bridge station. This included a plaza on the corner, which was elevated above the street and little used. Between the plaza and Batman Avenue, which ran along the north bank of the
Yarra River, were the extensive
Jolimont Railway Yards, and the through train lines running into Flinders Street station under Swanston Street. In 1978 the idea of roofing the railyards was again proposed as part of a State Government competition for a landmark, asking for “an idea, a word, image or plan” to put Melbourne on the map. It drew 2300 entries, but no winner was declared.
Design competition and controversy In 1996 the
Premier Jeff Kennett announced that the Gas & Fuel Buildings would be demolished, and the railyards roofed, and a complex including arts facilities and a large public space would be built. It was to be named Federation Square, and opened in time to celebrate the centenary of Australia's Federation in 2001, and would include performing arts facilities, a gallery, a cinemedia centre, the public space, a glazed wintergarden, and ancillary cafe and retail spaces. An
architectural design competition was announced that received 177 entries from around the world. Five designs were shortlisted, which included entries from high-profile Melbourne architects
Denton Corker Marshall and
Ashton Raggatt McDougall, and lesser known Sydney architect Chris Elliott, and London based architects Jenny Lowe and Adrian Hawker. The jury was chaired by Professor
Neville Quarry. The winner announced on 28 July 1997, a consortium led by
Lab Architecture Studio directed by Donald Bates and Peter Davidson from
London, with the Dutch landscape architects Karres en Brands, directed by Sylvia Karres and Bart Brands, teamed with local executive architects
Bates Smart for the second stage. The design, originally costed at between $110 and $150 million, was complex and irregular, with gently angled 'cranked' geometries predominating in both the planning and the facade treatment of the various buildings and the wintergardens that surrounded and defined the open spaces. A series of 'shards' provided vertical accents, while interconnected laneways and stairways and the wintergarden would connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River. The open square was arranged as a gently sloping amphitheatre, focussed on a large viewing screen for public events, with a secondary sloped plaza area on the main corner. The design was widely supported by the design community but was less popular with the public. The design was also soon criticised when it was realised that the western freestanding 'shard' would block views of the south front of
St Paul's Cathedral from
Princes Bridge.
Construction After the 1999 state election, while construction was well underway, the incoming
Bracks Government ordered a report by the
University of Melbourne's Professor Evan Walker into the 'western shard' to be located on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets, which concluded in February 2000 that the "heritage vista" towards St Paul's cathedral should be preserved, and the shard be no more than 8m in height. Budgets on the project blew out significantly due to the initial cost being seriously underestimated, given the expense of covering the railyards, changes to the brief, the need to resolve construction methods for the angular design, and the long delays. Among measures taken to cut costs was concreting areas originally designed for paving. The final cost of construction was approximately $467 million (over four times the original estimate), the main funding primarily from the state government, with $64 million from the City of Melbourne, some from the
federal government, while private operators and sponsors paid for fitouts or naming rights. The square was opened on 26 October 2002.
Further expansion In 2006, Federation Wharf redeveloped the vaults under Princes Walk (a former roadway) into a large bar, with extensive outdoor areas on the Yarra riverbank, with elevator access to Federation Square. Several proposals have been prepared for the area known as Federation Square East, the remaining area of railyards to the east. There have been proposals for office towers and, more recently, a combination of open space and a hotel, or another campus for the National Gallery of Victoria to house their contemporary art collection.
Apple Store In December 2017, the
Andrews government announced that one of the buildings of the square, the Birrarung Building, would be demolished to make way for a freestanding
Apple Store, generating strong criticism over the commercial use of a cultural space. Opposition groups including Our City Our Square and the
National Trust of Australia (Victoria) then nominated Fed Square to the
Victorian Heritage Register, which resulted in an interim decision to list in October 2018. Apple cancelled the plans in April 2019 after the application to Heritage Victoria to demolish the Birrarung Building was denied, and after a hearing, the square was formally listed in August 2019.
Metro Entrance With the construction of the upcoming
Melbourne Metro Tunnel, an entrance to the underground Town Hall station from the corner of Federation Square was proposed, with a design released in December 2018 that would replace the corner Information Centre. After the heritage listing of the square, a permit was sought to demolish the building and the plaza around it, which was granted on the basis that the Information Centre was not the original design for the 'Western Shard', and it was demolished by January 2019, though without a final approved design for the new entrance.
Later Developments In early 2022, following the decision to build a new National Gallery Victoria Contemporary behind the NGV, with a linear public space connection through to St Kilda Road, the State Government established the
Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation to manage the delivery of the new park, the management of Federation Square, and to better connect the various arts institutions in Southbank to each other and through to the CBD. In October 2023 the Age newspaper ran a series of articles on the square, providing a range of opinions on its strengths and weaknesses. The failure of many cafes and shops over the years was noted, as well as the rough surface affecting mobility, the lack of shade, and the lack of clear paths through the site, concluding that the square was still a 'work in progress'. ==Location and layout==