Melbourne Town Hall, Concert hall in Melbourne central business district, Australia
Melbourne Town Hall is a concert hall located in Melbourne's central business district, constructed from bluestone and freestone. The building combines Neoclassical elements with Victorian and Second Empire design features.
Melbourne was incorporated as a town in 1842, and its first town hall opened in 1854. A design competition in 1866 chose Reed & Barnes, and Prince Alfred laid the foundation stone on 29 November 1867. The new hall opened on 11 August 1870 with a ball funded by Mayor Samuel Amess. The front portico followed in 1887, and the 1925 fire led to rebuilding by Stephenson & Meldrum.
The hall's name comes from its civic role, and its stage has hosted film premieres, opera and rock receptions. The Salvation Army's Soldiers of the Cross premiered here in 1900 before about 4,000 people, and in 1928 Dame Nellie Melba borrowed the hall keeper's piano from his penthouse for an encore.
The building stands on the northeast corner of Swanston and Collins streets, with the main entrance facing Collins Street beneath the portico. Trams run along both streets, and the Town Hall stop on Swanston Street is at the door. The corner clock tower, Prince Alfred's Tower, is the easiest landmark to orient by.
The 1925 fire destroyed the main auditorium and its pipe organ, valued then at £15,000. The rebuilt hall kept an arched coffered ceiling like the earlier one. In 1927 Napier Waller painted murals directly onto the asbestos Celotex acoustic tiles, using line-work so a skin of paint would not reduce their sound-absorbing quality.
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