Melbourne has become renowned as Australia’s cultural capital. Note Southbank’s Arts Precinct located next door to Southgate, stretching from the Yarra to the end of Sturt Street. Over the years it has become home to performing arts companies, venues and galleries. This pedestrian-friendly Arts Precinct includes Sidney Myer Music Bowl (1959), the newest National Gallery Victoria building (1968), the city’s premier concert venue Hamer Hall (1982), Arts Centre Melbourne (1984) and its spire, Malthouse Theatre (1990), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2002), Melbourne Recital Centre (2009) and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre (2009).
The Melbourne Arts Precinct Blueprint 2014 is a co-ordinated approach to the future development of the precinct. The study has been co-ordinated by the key arts stakeholders: City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and State Government. Whilst each individual organisation has its own plans for the future, the Blueprint sees the precinct as a coordinated plan for this part of the city. A vibrant Southbank precinct needs mixed-use activities with a strong arts focus, vibrant street activity and energy. And as ever, tree-lined streets and beautiful Victorian buildings were/are well preserved.
Was Melbourne’s Art Precinct based on the ideas of the City Beautiful Movement, imported from an overseas city? In the C19th, I might have examined the Vienna’s Ringstrasse. But in the C20th, I would be looking instead at Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia.
![]()
The Melbourne Arts Precinct Blueprint 2014 is a co-ordinated approach to the future development of the precinct. The study has been co-ordinated by the key arts stakeholders: City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and State Government. Whilst each individual organisation has its own plans for the future, the Blueprint sees the precinct as a coordinated plan for this part of the city. A vibrant Southbank precinct needs mixed-use activities with a strong arts focus, vibrant street activity and energy. And as ever, tree-lined streets and beautiful Victorian buildings were/are well preserved.
Was Melbourne’s Art Precinct based on the ideas of the City Beautiful Movement, imported from an overseas city? In the C19th, I might have examined the Vienna’s Ringstrasse. But in the C20th, I would be looking instead at Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia.
St Kilda Rd, part of the Arts Precinct
Melbourne
At first Philadelphia’s Parkway was a bold dream by the architects who wanted urban planning that could make Philadelphia very special. Fortunately some institutions were already in place. The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, head church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, had been built on Logan Square, as far back as 1846-64 (by Napoleon LeBrun). As had the Academy of Natural Sciences had opened in 1876 (architect James Windrim).
A formal Parkway plan was developed in 1907 by Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger and Paul Crét for the Fairmount Park Art Association. It was a region of educational activities grouped around Logan Square as the central anchor, an artistic centre developed around the Fairmount Plaza, at the entrance to Philadelphia’s best park. Work started in 1917, cutting a very wide (160’) corridor through Fairmount’s residential housing. Philadelphia had thus created a Champs Elysee-like boulevard that connected the centre city to Fairmount Park.
Fortunately Philadelphia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1876 with America's first World's Fair. And the Philadelphia Museum of Art was originally chartered in 1876 for the World Fair. The City Council funded a competition in 1895 to design a new museum building, and by 1907 architectural plans from Zantzinger and Charles Borie started construction in the Fairmount Parkway. The main museum building opened in 1928. Across from the Museum’s main building, a newly renovated and expanded building opened in 2007.
The Town Hall was completed in 1901. Designed by architects John McArthur, John Ord and Bleddyn Powell, it was the largest municipal building in the USA.
The main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia opened its main branch doors alongside Logan Square in 1927. The first section of the Pennsylvania Museum was opened in 1928 on the Parkway, designed by architects Borie, Trumbauer and Zantzinger. It was renamed Philadelphia Museum of Art ten years later.
Other American cities were planning similar projects during those years, creating America's first important contribution to urban design, the City Beautiful Movement. The city planners wanted a model of an orderly, classical metropolis, crossed by boulevards and dominated by contemporary Beaux-Arts and neoclassical buildings. Philadelphia could rightly claim it met the urban challenges of the new era, with a grand boulevard evoking the energy of the C20th.
![]()
Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul
Philadelphia
![]()
Washington Monument Fountain, Philadelphia
facing down the Parkway.
![]()
Philadelphia Museum of Art
In 2009 critic Anthony Tommasini noted that if a sprawling multi-disciplinary performing-arts complex were proposed in a big city today, it would probably never be built. Talking about the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts in New York, he said the community assumed that orchestras, opera companies, ballet troupes and theatres would gain a lot by becoming partners in a centralised complex. But, he asked, is that still true? Firstly the promise of arts organisations working together can become a daily grind of competing boards. Secondly such complexes tend to result in an arts ghetto, away from the broader community. He concluded that because an Arts Precinct allowed arts lovers to travel from their suburbs, dine, attend a performance and return home, it placed functional convenience above the desirability for the arts to be owned by the community.
A formal Parkway plan was developed in 1907 by Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger and Paul Crét for the Fairmount Park Art Association. It was a region of educational activities grouped around Logan Square as the central anchor, an artistic centre developed around the Fairmount Plaza, at the entrance to Philadelphia’s best park. Work started in 1917, cutting a very wide (160’) corridor through Fairmount’s residential housing. Philadelphia had thus created a Champs Elysee-like boulevard that connected the centre city to Fairmount Park.
Fortunately Philadelphia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1876 with America's first World's Fair. And the Philadelphia Museum of Art was originally chartered in 1876 for the World Fair. The City Council funded a competition in 1895 to design a new museum building, and by 1907 architectural plans from Zantzinger and Charles Borie started construction in the Fairmount Parkway. The main museum building opened in 1928. Across from the Museum’s main building, a newly renovated and expanded building opened in 2007.
The Town Hall was completed in 1901. Designed by architects John McArthur, John Ord and Bleddyn Powell, it was the largest municipal building in the USA.
The main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia opened its main branch doors alongside Logan Square in 1927. The first section of the Pennsylvania Museum was opened in 1928 on the Parkway, designed by architects Borie, Trumbauer and Zantzinger. It was renamed Philadelphia Museum of Art ten years later.
The Rodin Museum opened on Parkway in 1929. The architects were Crét and Jacques Gréber.
Designed by John Windrim, the Franklin Science Institute opened its new building on the Parkway in 1934-38, after 110 years in other Philadelphia locations. Note the imposing statue.
As much time was put into transforming the Parkway outside (sculpture, gardens) as was put into the individual buildings’ architecture eg Swann Memorial Fountain was designed by sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder and completed in 1924, as the centrepiece of Logan Square.
I wasn't very interested in the secure detention Youth Study Centre which was constructed on the Parkway in 1952 (by J Roy Carroll, John Grisdale and William Van Alen). But I was fascinated in 2009 when the youth centre was demolished to make way for the Barnes Foundation which had been in Merion for decades. It opened in 2012.
Moore College of Art and Design moved to its new campus on the Parkway in 1959. And was expanded in 2000.
Designed by John Windrim, the Franklin Science Institute opened its new building on the Parkway in 1934-38, after 110 years in other Philadelphia locations. Note the imposing statue.
As much time was put into transforming the Parkway outside (sculpture, gardens) as was put into the individual buildings’ architecture eg Swann Memorial Fountain was designed by sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder and completed in 1924, as the centrepiece of Logan Square.
I wasn't very interested in the secure detention Youth Study Centre which was constructed on the Parkway in 1952 (by J Roy Carroll, John Grisdale and William Van Alen). But I was fascinated in 2009 when the youth centre was demolished to make way for the Barnes Foundation which had been in Merion for decades. It opened in 2012.
Moore College of Art and Design moved to its new campus on the Parkway in 1959. And was expanded in 2000.
Other American cities were planning similar projects during those years, creating America's first important contribution to urban design, the City Beautiful Movement. The city planners wanted a model of an orderly, classical metropolis, crossed by boulevards and dominated by contemporary Beaux-Arts and neoclassical buildings. Philadelphia could rightly claim it met the urban challenges of the new era, with a grand boulevard evoking the energy of the C20th.
Philadelphia
facing down the Parkway.
In 2009 critic Anthony Tommasini noted that if a sprawling multi-disciplinary performing-arts complex were proposed in a big city today, it would probably never be built. Talking about the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts in New York, he said the community assumed that orchestras, opera companies, ballet troupes and theatres would gain a lot by becoming partners in a centralised complex. But, he asked, is that still true? Firstly the promise of arts organisations working together can become a daily grind of competing boards. Secondly such complexes tend to result in an arts ghetto, away from the broader community. He concluded that because an Arts Precinct allowed arts lovers to travel from their suburbs, dine, attend a performance and return home, it placed functional convenience above the desirability for the arts to be owned by the community.
I am not sure his arguments are valid in Melbourne or in Philadelphia, so now is time to read Richard Carreño's Museum Mile: Philadelphia's Parkway Museums, 2011. It tells how and why the Benjamin Franklin Parkway eventually hosted at least 12 major cultural institutions of national.