Southbank and Flinders

This morning the trams weren’t running from the major downtown train station out toward the St. Kilda and Southbank areas.  I ended up walking about 6 city blocks to get to work this morning, along with heaps of others.  Thought I’d take a few snapshots along the way - these are things I pass every day on my way to work - although, usually on a tram not by foot.  I actually work in a very nice part of Melbourne where the Victora National Gallary of Arts, the Victoria Barracks, and The Arts Centre of Melbourne are located.  Here are a few fun shots and descriptions from my walk to work this morning:

The Arts Centre

The Arts Centre is the flagship of the performing arts in Victoria. It stands for performance and its iconic spire locates the performing arts at the centre of Melbourne’s civic and cultural precinct.

Comprising the Theatres Building, Hamer Hall and Melbourne’s iconic outdoor performance space, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the Arts Centre programs a diverse range of performances and events to deliver the best national and international performing arts experience.

It does this by having a performance program which combines the best of Australian performing arts organisations with a broad range of international performances.

These performances are supported by important visual and performing arts collections and a wide-reaching education program which extends the Arts Centre’s reach throughout Victoria and beyond.

The Arts Centre also celebrates artists and fosters creative opportunity, serving as a focal point for the development of imaginative new work and supporting artists to create innovative productions in a vibrant creative environment. 

This is one of the most recognisable monuments in the Central Business District, it is one of the things I noticed most from our balloon over Melbourne a few weeks ago.  It’s quite beautiful in person! 

You can find out more about The Arts Centre online at: http://www.theartscentre.com.au/.

National Gallery of Victoria (International Collections)

Since 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria has been displaying art works for the enjoyment of the community. In the mid-1990s, the gallery acknowledged that its St Kilda Road building could no longer successfully meet the demands of its growing collection and extensive exhibitions schedule.

The Victorian State Government agreed to an extensive redevelopment of the site, and also contribute towards the funding of a second NGV building at Federation Square.

Currently there are four interesting collections (free entry) at the NGV International:

The Collection is now split between The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square, home of Australian art, and NGV International at St Kilda Road, the new redeveloped building dedicated to the gallery’s magnificent international artworks. Our visitors now have two wonderful NGV buildings dedicated to bringing art and people together. You can

The Victoria Barracks

The earliest buildings at Victoria Barracks were built by soldiers in the late 1850s, with the original bluestone buildings being constructed between 1856 and 1872. A large extension was made to officers’ quarters in 1917 but with the growth of service personnel and civilian staff at the beginning of the Second World War, space was at a premium.

Victoria Barracks was the administrative headquarters for the Australian Army but to ensure the close coordination of the three services necessary to the war effort, the Barracks also became the administrative headquarters of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.

As well, accommodation needed to be found at the Barracks for Ministers and staff travelling to meetings of the War Cabinet and the Advisory War Council in Melbourne.

In 1940, a five story red brick extension - ‘N Block’ - was erected behind the original ‘C Block’ to house the administrative headquarters of the Navy and the Air Force.

Today the Victoria Barracks is a beautiful monument on St. Kilda Road across the street from the Shrine and 6 blocks from Flinders Street Train Station in Melbourne.

The Shrine of Rememberance, Melbourne

The Shrine of Remembrance was built between July 1928 and November 1934 in remembrance of the 114,000 men and women of Victoria who served and those who died in the Great War of 1914-1918 - 89,100 of them served overseas and 19,000 did not return.

The people of Victoria felt that their debt to these volunteers, who had defended them at such great costs to themselves and their families, should be recognised by a worthy permanent monument of remembrance.

Although the country was faced with frightful unemployment and financial difficulty in the late 1920s and the 1930s, so great was the gratitude of the people that the huge amount required to build the Shrine was raised or promised within six months from the opening of the appeal in 1928.

The design for the Shrine of Remembrance was selected by competition among Australian artists and architects. Eighty-three designs were submitted and the winning design was by two Melbourne returned-soldier architects, Philip Hudson and James Wardrop.

The inspiration for the external outline came from one of the seven wonders of the ancient world - the mausoleum at Harlicarnassus to Mausolus, King of Caria in South West Asia Minor.

Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester and son of King George V, officially opened the Shrine before a crowd of 300,000 people in November 1934.

Since then, it has been a growing monument, with other memorials added to the site to mark the service of successive generations, such as the Second World War Forecourt and the Remembrance Garden – Post 1945 Memorial.   You can get more information about the Melbourne Shrine online at: www.shrine.org.au

Doncaster Shoppingtown Construction

Our closest shopping centre “Doncaster Shoppingtown” has been under construction for some time now, it is suppose to be the largest shopping centre in Melbourne when they are done which will include a 16-plex cinema! Hurray!  We went to check out the new wing that was just finished this week which includes some gormet stores selling chocolates, meats, nuts and beans, as well as a Bread Top (asian bread shop - very yummy).  There is an Ed Hardy store (the first I’ve seen here), and a couple other new glamours stores new to Melbourne. We took some snapshots of our weekend visit:

LinkedIn - Job Networking Online! 

Definitely a new tool in the online job networking market and job search!  I seriously don’t think there are enough ways to connect online these days whether it be through Classmates.com connecting with High School mates, MySpace and Facebook for friend networking, or now LinkedIn.com.  With this new online tool you can enter your past jobs and connect back with past co-workers and colleagues, you can get recommendations, and it even provides you with an online resume with the basic details.  One click - your CV online in an instant!  Try it out at www.linkedin.com.   And when you do, add me as a contact!

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Mental Status:This is a three-day weekend, celebrating ANZAC Memorial Day (Australa/New Zealand Army Corps).  We are planning on doing nothing at all! And I couldn’t be more excited about getting lots of sleep.
Favourite thing this week: Started taking guitar lessons!
Album of the Week: Funplex: B-52’s
Upcoming events: Thailand trip 16 June