Relic of the World's Fair

Walking into the Royal Exhibition Building is like walking onto the outdoor set of a period drama, but one with a really small budget for extras so they could only afford ghosts. The grandeur of the building is undeniable, but it’s a little like those old mansions in New Orleans that have seen better days—majestic, yes, but a tad empty and a little tattered around the edges. None of that bothered me because 1) I love decayed elegance, and 2) I really just wanted to go up on the roof.

The building looms large over Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens, its architecture a mixture of Byzantine and Renaissance styles. And something called Rundbogenstil, which I have not ever, not even once in my whole life, heard of before. It's German for "round arch style," and I guess I'm not entirely sure we need a word for that. But whatever. In this case, it contributes in no small part to a mishmash that looks like someone threw an architectural party and forgot to declare a theme. So let’s call it “eclectic.”

The Royal Exhibition Building’s history is just as jumbled, confused colorful as its architecture. It was built to host the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, the eighth World's Fair and the first in the Southern Hemisphere. Honestly, it was essentially a pissing match with Sydney about who could get the first World’s Fair down here.* But after all was said and done, Melbourne’s version saw nearly 1.5 million exhibition visitors and made a tidy profit of £1,570. Which does NOT sound good. But I guess in today’s money, that would be nearly £230,000, or $300,000.

And that was enough to turn some greedy little heads in Melbourne. In fact, they decided that since they already had the park and the exhibition hall built, they should do it all over again by hosting an even larger Centennial International Exhibition in 1888. This party was ostensibly meant to celebrate the centenary of European settlement on the Australian continent.

This exhibition was much bigger than the one eight years earlier, though many saw it as a failure. Yes, it lost money. Yes, it was less prestigious than the earlier one.** However, some say this was the moment when ministers from the various, highly competitive Australian colonies began to talk seriously about federation into a single nation, which would ultimately occur in 1901. So you could say that this event led to Australia's founding. Hardly a failure as an outcome.***

Now where was I? Oh, right, the building.

We started in the basement, where a docent, brimming with enthusiasm, dives into the history by pretty much just reading all the signs to us. But, you know, there were some pretty great historical photos, too. Post dual international expositions, the building was a catch-all for whatever Melbourne needed at the moment.

In 1901, Australia’s Parliament held its first meeting here, and they flew the Australian national flag for the first time from the top of the dome. This historic event was immortalized in a couple of famous paintings^† that captured the day's essence and personalities.

The Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York (later H.M. King George V), May 9, 1901^†† is a 1903 painting by Tom Roberts. It technically belongs to King Charles III, though it's now on a permanent loan to the Australian Parliament in Canberra.

The other painting, The Opening of Federal Parliament, 9 May 1901 by Charles Nuttall,^††† was completed in 1902 and includes 344 individual recognizable portraits of every single attendee at the opening. It was a monochrome painting so it could be turned into a photogravure for broader distribution. Nuttall, like Roberts, did a series of individual sketches and portraits of all his subjects, not all of whom were comfortable with the process. One Sydney MP, George Reid, kept falling asleep and only finally stayed awake when Nuttall threatened to show him sleeping in the final painting. Nuttall also had the balls to paint himself into the final picture.º

Ultimately, though, the Parliament of Australia only met in the Royal Exhibition Building twice before deciding it was way too uncomfortable and drafty for men of their station and caliber. So they forced the Parliament of Victoria to trade places with them, a situation that lasted for 26 years while they built the city of Canberra. Rude.

The building was also used as a hospital and temporary morgue for a year at the start of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919.ºº

From 1940 to 1946, the Australian armed forces (well, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Infantry Forces, and the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force, anyway) requisitioned the building and the surrounding park to practice their ditch-digging skills, among other things, I’m sure. The RAAF left behind a bunch of prefab steel barracks, which were used to house newly arrived British migrants—until 1962! Good Lord.

For much of that time, from 1930 to 1953, the building was the home of the Melbourne Aquarium. That just seems so odd to me. Was it just a giant collection of fish tanks lining the walls? Anyway, it caught fire in 1953. They were able to salvage the building, but “all the fish died.” The good news is that three seals escaped, and many birds—including a peacock—were rescued by volunteer firefighters.ººº

Darn it. I think I wandered off-topic again.

Okay, so anyway, then we went upstairs. More exposition from the docent, yada yada yada. Then we were finally allowed up onto the roof, or the Promenade. It was a real showstopper and exactly what I’d come for. The view is extraordinary—a 360-degree panorama of the Carlton Gardens and the Melbourne skyline. From this vantage point, the city sprawls out like a living map. So cool.

After less time than we would've liked, we all filed back down to the main hall. It's a cavernous space where our footsteps echo off the walls. When it's not buzzing with exhibitions and events, the hall looks a little forlorn. It seems like a never-ending task just to keep up maintenance on the place. And as the docent pointed out, sometimes restoring one thing upsets the delicate balance and creates problems elsewhere. I guess they finally patched all the leaking holes in the ceiling, only to discover the repairs affected the interior humidity so that all the murals started to fall apart. Oops.

In the end, the Royal Exhibition Building has likely far outlived its expected useful life. But oh man is it cool on the inside—and with an incredible rooftop, too. It's majestic, slightly absurd, and steeped in history. A relic of a bygone era that still manages to captivate. Me, anyway.