Victoria is a state located in the south-eastern
corner of Australia. It is the smallest mainland
state in area but the most densely populated and
urbanised.
Over
five million people now inhabit the region. European
settlement in Victoria began in the 1830s as a
farming community. The discovery of gold in 1851
transformed it into a leading industrial and
commercial centre.
Melbourne
Cricket Ground:
The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is an Australian
sports stadium located in Yarra Park in inner
Melbourne, home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is
the largest stadium in Australia, and holds the
world record for the highest light towers at any
sporting venue. The MCG is within walking distance
of the city centre, and is serviced by Richmond and
Jolimont train stations.
Internationally, the MCG is remembered as the
centrepiece stadium of the 1956 Summer Olympics and
the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The open-air stadium is
also one of the world's most famous cricket venues,
with the well-attended Boxing Day test match
commencing on Boxing Day every year. Throughout the
winter, it serves as the home of Australian rules
football, with at least one game (though usually
more) held there each round. The stadium fills to
capacity for the AFL Grand Final in late September
and the The ANZAC Day clash in April.
Until
the 1970s, more than 120,000 people were sometimes
crammed into the venue - the record crowd standing
at around 130,000 for a Billy Graham religious event
in 1959, followed by 121,696 for the 1970 VFL Grand
Final. Renovations and safety regulations now limit
the maximum capacity to just over 100,000. This
makes it the eighth largest stadium in the world,
just ahead of Azadi Stadium in Iran and Bukit Jalil
National Stadium in Malaysia.
The
MCG, often referred to by locals as "The G", has
also hosted other major events, including
International Rules between the Australian Football
League and Gaelic Athletic Association,
international Rugby union, State of Origin rugby
league, FIFA World Cup qualifiers and International
Friendly matches, serves as the finish line for the
Melbourne Marathon, and also large rock concerts.
Punt
Road Oval, home of Richmond Football Club is located
only a few hundred metres to the east of the
stadium.
The MCG is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register
and was included on the Australian National Heritage
List on Boxing Day, December 2005.
It is
referred to within Victoria as the "Spiritual Home
of Australian Sport".
On the 30th of January 2009, the MCG was named as
one of the 7 wonders of the sporting world.
Eureka
Tower:
Eureka Tower is a 300-metre (984 ft) skyscraper
located in the Southbank precinct of Melbourne,
Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the
exterior completed on 1 June 2006. The plaza was
finished in June 2006 and the building was
officially opened on 11 October 2006. The project
was designed by Melbourne architectural firm Fender
Katsalidis Architects and was built by Grocon (Grollo
Australia). The developer of the tower was Eureka
Tower Pty Ltd, a joint venture consisting of Daniel
Grollo (Grocon), investor Tab Fried and one of the
Tower's architects Nonda Katsalidis. The tower is
the world's tallest residential tower when measured
to its highest floor, but Q1 located on the Gold
Coast is officially the world's tallest residential
building as its spire adds to its total height.
Eureka Tower is named after the Eureka Stockade, a
rebellion during the Victorian gold rush in 1854.
This has been incorporated into the design, with the
building's gold crown representing the gold rush and
a red stripe representing the blood spilt during the
revolt. The blue glass cladding that covers most of
the building represents the blue background of the
stockade's flag and the white
When measured either by the height of its roof, or
by the height of its highest habitable floor, Eureka
Tower is the tallest residential building in the
world. It is also currently the building with the
most floors available for residential occupancy in
the world. The building stands 300 metres in height,
with 91 storeys above ground plus one basement
level. It is one of only seven buildings in the
world with 90 or more storeys and is the 43rd
tallest building in the world. It is also the second
tallest building in Australia and the tallest
building in Melbourne. The single level basement and
first 9 floors contain car parking.
The
building's proximity to the water table as well as
the Yarra River made a basement car park uneconomic
to construct. There are a total of 84 floors of
apartments (including some floors shared between car
parking and apartments) with the remainder being
used for building facilities and the observation
deck.
According to the ranking system developed by the
U.S.-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban
Habitat, the Eureka Tower qualifies as the tallest
building in two of the four categories in which
heights are ranked, namely height to the floor of
the highest occupied floor of the building, and
height to the top of the roof. For comparison, the
Q1 apartment tower in Gold Coast, Queensland has its
highest habitable floor the observation deck,
reaching a height of 235 m (771 ft), some 62 m (203
ft) lower than Eureka Tower's highest habitable
floor.
Q1's highest penthouse apartment is 217 m (712 ft)
whilst Eureka's penthouse is 278 m (912 ft) high.
However, the spire attached to the top of Q1 exceeds
the Eureka Tower in the other two categories, namely
"Height to the tip of spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast
or flag pole" – in this case, spire – and height to
architectural top of the building.
Flinders
Street Station:
Flinders Street Station is the central railway
station of the suburban rail network of Melbourne,
Australia. It is on the corner of Flinders and
Swanston Streets next to the Yarra River in the
heart of the city, stretching from Swanston Street
to Queen Street and covering two city blocks.
Each weekday, over 110,000 commuters and 1,500
trains pass through the station. Flinders Street is
serviced by Connex's suburban services, and V/Line
regional services to Gippsland.
The Melburnian idiom "I'll meet you under the
clocks" refers to the row of clocks above the main
entrance, which indicate the departure time of the
next train on each line. This is a popular meeting
place, at the intersection of two of the city's
busiest thoroughfares. The station is listed on the
Victorian Heritage Register.
The Swanston Street Extension frontage of the
pre-1910 stationThe first railway station to occupy
the Flinders Street site was called Melbourne
Terminus, and was a collection of weatherboard train
sheds. It was completed in 1854 and was officially
opened on September 12 by the Lieutenant-Governor,
Sir Charles Hotham.[2] The terminus was the first
city railway station in Australia, and the opening
day saw the first steam train trip in the country.
It travelled to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne), over
the now redeveloped Sandridge Bridge, travelling
along the now light rail Port Melbourne line.
The first terminus had a single platform 30 metres
long, and was located beside the Fish Market
building on the south-west corner of Swanston and
Flinders Streets. An additional platform was
provided in 1877, along with two overhead bridges to
provide passenger access, followed by additional
timber and corrugated iron buildings and a telegraph
station in 1879. The first signal boxes were opened
at the station in 1883, one at each end of the
platforms. By the 1890s a third island platform had
been constructed.
Melbourne's two other early central-city stations,
Spencer Street Station (now Southern Cross Station)
and Princes Bridge, opened in 1859. Spencer Street
was isolated from the rest of the network until a
ground level railway was built connecting it to
Flinders Street in 1879, this track being replaced
by the Flinders Street Viaduct in 1889.
Federation Square:
Federation Square (also colloquially
known as Fed Square) is a cultural precinct in the
city of Melbourne, Australia. It comprises a series
of buildings containing a public broadcaster, art
galleries, a museum, cinemas, exhibition spaces,
auditoria, restaurants, bars and shops around two
major public spaces, one covered (The Atrium), the
other open to the sky, and composed of two spaces
that flow into one another (St. Paul's Court and The
Square). The majority of the precinct is built on
top of a concrete deck over busy railway lines.
Federation Square occupies roughly a whole urban
block bounded by Swanston, Flinders, and Russell
Streets and the Yarra River. The open public squares
are directly opposite Flinders Street Station and St
Paul's Cathedral. The layout of the precinct helps
to connect the historical central district of the
city with the Yarra River and a new park Birrarung
Marr. This refocusing of the city on the Yarra River
also partly reinforces links with the Southbank
district, whose redevelopment has been ongoing as a
key part of central Melbourne since the late 1980s.
The
site of Federation Square has had a variety of
former uses. The Gas and Fuel Buildings, Jolimont
Yard and the Princes Bridge railway station were the
immediate predecessors, though in the nineteenth
century there was a morgue on the site. The result
of an international design competition held in 1997
that received 177 entries, Federation Square was
designed by Don Bates and Peter Davidson of Lab
Architecture Studio.
When the winning bid was announced in 1997, the
design was a source of great controversy, being
widely supported by the design community and causing
outrage among heritage advocates. There was a change
of government during its construction, and the
incoming Labor administration ordered a significant
design revision to appease conservative critics.
he
original design included several five-storey
'shards', two of which were free-standing on the
north-western edge of the precinct. These two
structures were intended to provide a framed view of
St. Paul's Cathedral from the St. Paul's Court part
of the new plaza. A report drawn up by Evan Walker
proposed that the westernmost shard interfered with
a so-called "heritage vista", a view of the
cathedral from the middle of the tram tracks on
Princes Bridge to the south. A major controversy
ensued and a single-storey version was the
compromised result.
Rialto
Towers:
The
Rialto Towers (often The Rialto) is the
second-tallest reinforced concrete building and the
tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere,
when measured to its roof (several other skyscrapers
in Australia are taller if their spires are
included, as are some other structures in Australia
such as communications masts and observation
towers). Mounted atop the building is a 19 metre
antenna, which does not count toward its overall
height according to the Council on Tall Buildings
and Urban Habitat's Height to Architectural Top
category. The building is located at 525 Collins
Street, in the western side of the central business
district of Melbourne, Australia.
The
site of the Rialto Towers was occupied by Robb's
Buildings, a grand classical styled 5 storey
Victorian office building designed by Thomas Watts
and Sons
(and reputedly the tallest in the Melbourne City Centre in 1885), and a
1920s building of the same size.
he
site was owned by the National Mutual Life
Association. Located adjacent to the Rialto Building
and the Winfield Building, both historic buildings
dating from the late 19th century which formed part
of a height limited uniform streetscape which
continued to the site of the Rialto towers, the
corner of King and Collins Streets.
ittle progress was made until 1980 when the site was
acquired by Grollo Australia. Despite the structural
integrity of Robb's buildings and objections by the
National Trust of Victoria, Grocon argued that the
retention of Robb's Buildings would spoil the effect
of the proposed building and that as it would not
integrate well with the new structure, the Rialto
should have its own modern concrete and glass
podium.
Robb's buildings were subsequently demolished
opening the way for construction to begin on the
Rialto.
Designed by architects Gerard de Preu and Partners
in association with Perrott Lyon Mathieson, the
building was built between 1982 and 1986, opening in
October 1986, and takes its name from the much older
Rialto Building next door. The massive glass façade,
its central feature, changes colour during the day,
ranging from a trademark dark blue to a brilliant
gold during sunset.
Victorian
Alps:
The
Australian Alps are the highest mountain ranges of
mainland Australia. They are located in
south-eastern Australia and straddle the Australian
Capital Territory, south-eastern New South Wales and
eastern Victoria. The Alps contain the Australian
mainland's only peaks exceeding 2,000 metres (6,500
feet) and the only place in which snow occurs
regularly.
The
Australian Alps are part of the Great Dividing
Range, the series of mountains and plateaus which
run about 3,000 kilometres from northern Queensland
to central Victoria. These highlands divide the
rivers and streams which flow eastwards into the
Pacific Ocean, from those rivers and streams which
flow inland to the Murray River system or internal
catchments. The highlands reach their greatest
height in the Alps. The Snowy Mountains in New South
Wales are part of the Alps.
The
southwestern half of the Australian Alps, in
Victoria, are also referred to as the Victorian
Alps.
The
Australian Alps are the highest mountain ranges of
mainland Australia. They are located in
south-eastern Australia and straddle the Australian
Capital Territory, south-eastern New South Wales and
eastern Victoria. The Alps contain the Australian
mainland's only peaks exceeding 2,000 metres (6,500
feet) and the only place in which snow occurs
regularly.
The
Australian Alps are part of the Great Dividing
Range, the series of mountains and plateaus which
run about 3,000 kilometres from northern Queensland
to central Victoria. These highlands divide the
rivers and streams which flow eastwards into the
Pacific Ocean, from those rivers and streams which
flow inland to the Murray River system or internal
catchments. The highlands reach their greatest
height in the Alps. The Snowy Mountains in New South
Wales are part of the Alps.
The
southwestern half of the Australian Alps, in
Victoria, are also referred to as the Victorian
Alps.
This
article is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Cricket_Ground
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Tower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinders_Street_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_Square
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rialto_Towers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Alps
