Melbourne Town Hall

The Melbourne Town Hall, often referred to as simply Town Hall, is the administrative seat of the local municipality of the City of Melbourne and the primary offices of the Lord Mayor and city councillors of Melbourne. Located on the northeast corner of Swanston and Collins streets in the city centre of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia, the building was completed in 1887 and was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 1974 in recognition of its historical, architectural, aesthetic and social significance. The building is frequently used for art and cultural events such as concerts, festivals, theatrical plays and exhibitions. Melbourne Town Hall is located on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri. History Melbourne was officially incorporated as a town on 13 December 1842, with Henry Condell as its first Mayor. However, it was not until 1854 that its first town hall was completed. Begun in 1851, the work had been delayed following the beginning of the Victorian gold rush. A design for a new, grander town hall was decided by a competition in 1866, won by Reed & Barnes, with detailed plans by John James Clark. The foundation stone was laid on 29 November 1867 by the visiting Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. The new town hall officially opened on 11 August 1870 with a lavish ball, which was personally funded by the Lord Mayor Samuel Amess. The foundation stone of the additional front portico was laid in 1887, and Sir Henry Weedon laid the foundation of the administrative annex building on 27 August 1908. This was also designed by Reed & Barnes. An early cinema event Soldiers of the Cross created by the Salvation Army premiered at the Melbourne Town Hall on 13 September 1900 to an audience of about four thousand people. In 1907 a competition for the Town Hall Administration wing, a large extension taking up the half block to the north, was won by Grainger, Kennedy & Little. Containing a new grand Council Chamber on the first floor, it opened in 1910. In 1913, the city hired a hall keeper in his 30s named James "Jimmy" Dewar, a Scottish immigrant and Black Watch veteran from Dundee. He continued to work there loyally for 30 years. James lived with his wife and family in the Hall's penthouse, raising their children there, and retired in 1943. During their upbringing in the Town Hall, their only playing space was a small asphalt yard where the children went "pigeon-nesting" on the roof. In his obituary in 1946, The Argus reported that James was a familiar face at the Hall in this era. In his duties, he greeted various visitors from locals to royals, including the French General Paul Pau, the Princes of Wales Edward VIII, and Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. James was described as a "friend, guide, and philosopher" to many Lord Mayors of Melbourne. When opera singer Dame Nellie Melba performed at the Hall in 1928, she wanted to give an encore, but her piano had been packed up and there was no music. James lent her his piano from his upstairs penthouse so she could perform. On 1 February 1925, a fire destroyed a large part of the town hall, including the main auditorium and pipe organ valued then at £15,000. It was rebuilt and enlarged, extending east over the site previously occupied by the Victoria Coffee Palace to the east, an early temperance hotel frequented by Melbourne's power brokers. The architects were Stephenson & Meldrum, who extended the Collins Street facade in matching style, but without Reed's elaborate mansard roof. The hall inside is in restrained classical style, with an arched coffered ceiling similar to the earlier hall. In 1964, The Beatles attended a civic reception at the Melbourne Town Hall. "Outside 20,000 teenagers had gathered to obtain a glimpse of the pop idols. Again, frenzied and hysterical cheering and uncontrollable screaming erupted when the Beatles emerged." Architecture The Town Hall was designed by the famous local architect Joseph Reed of Reed & Barnes, in the Second Empire style. Reed's designs also included the State Library of Victoria, the Royal Exhibition Building, and Melbourne Trades Hall. the Town Hall features a rough bluestone base, and classical elements of repeating pilasters with arched window bays between, topped by a tall parapets with attic windows and mansard roofs. The corner clocktower is known as Prince Alfred's Tower, named after the Duke of Edinburgh who laid the foundation stone. The clock is 2.44 m in diameter, and was started on 31 August 1874, after being presented to the council by the Mayor's son, Vallange Condell. It was built by Smith and Sons of London. The longest of its copper hands measures 1.19 m long, and weighs 8.85 kg. The 1910 Administration extension is designed in matching style, but with an extra attic floor. The Council Chamber is a large space, featuring marble and bronze, and carvings and mouldings of Australian flora. Most woodwork including the furniture is solid Tasmanian blackwood, embellished with fiddleback panels and elaborate carving. The building and the portico, excluding the interiors, were first classified on the basis of its Venetian Renaissance facade architecture by the National Trust in 1964 and reclassified in 1971. The organ and the 1927 murals by Napier Waller commissioned for £1,700 (a 2021 value of A$138,340.00) are also classified as historically significant at the State level. They were painted directly in line onto the newly installed asbestos Celotex acoustic tiles in a redecoration of the Auditorium after a fire in 1925. Waller, who had been given a free hand in devising the artworks explained that the figures were not intended to be allegorical, but to create rhythm, and that line-work was used because a skin of paint would interfere with the panels' sound-absorbing quality. The actual painting on the series of 7 metre high by 4m wide wall sections from Waller's half-scale cartoons produced in his Darebin studio was undertaken by H. Oliver and Sons under the artist's supervision. Organ The Main Auditorium includes a magnificent concert organ, now comprising 147 ranks and 9,568 pipes. The organ can be played by a fixed console located directly beneath the front pipes or by a secondary mobile console which is placed in close view of the audience for recitals. This organ is of great significance as it is the largest and most comprehensive pipe organ in Australia (measuring by number of voices/stops, the Sydney Opera House organ has more pipes thanks to its entirely "straight" design; there is no borrowing or duplexing at all whereas the Melbourne Town Hall organ makes extensive use of borrowing in the pedal division). The organ is best suited for romantic and symphonic works but is capable of playing just about anything thanks to its vast tonal resources. History of the organ The organ was originally built by Hill & Son (of England) in 1872 before a fire destroyed it in 1925. A new organ constructed by Hill Norman & Beard was installed in 1929 and has since then been rebuilt and enlarged by Schantz Organ Company of the United States of America from 1995 to 2001 at a cost of $4.5 million. The rebuild included 2 new floating divisions (Fanfare & Bombarde), many new voices and a secondary moveable console. Specification The stop list is as follows: See also List of Town Halls in Melbourne List of Mayors and Lord Mayors of Melbourne Architecture of Melbourne List of heritage-listed buildings in Melbourne References External links Town Hall History on the City of Melbourne official website Town Hall in Melbourne Melbourne Town Hall Organ details Grand Organ Specifications (2001)