Arts and Culture

With a long history of supporting the arts, Melbourne continues to offer culture vultures some of the world’s best art and performance. Here's our pick of the city’s most impressive galleries, theatres, and artistic landmarks.

National Gallery of Victoria

With its iconic water wall, announcing Melbourne’s cultural heartland, The National Gallery of Victoria offers 70,000 works of art from around the globe. You’re bound to bump into romantic impressionsists, quirky surrealists and master sculptors across the imposing space, recently redesigned by Italian architect Mario Bellini.

For Australian works of art, you’ll have to walk a few doors down to The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square. This is where you’ll find more Australian art on permanent display than any other gallery in the world; like the Joseph Brown collection, with its colonial greats from McCubbin to Von Guerard, donated by the Polish immigrant turned art dealer. Several indigenous galleries also breathe life into the spiritual culture of Australia’s first landowners – the Kooris.

Contacts details

• Address: St Kilda Seabaths 10 Jacka Boulevard, ST KILDA 3182
• Website: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au
• Email: enquiries@ngv.vic.gov.au
• Phone: +61 3 8620 2222

Trading Hours

• The Ian Potter Centre:
  NGV Australia
  Open 10am-5pm, Until 9pm Thursdays
  Closed Mondays, except public holidays
• NGV International
  Open 10am-5pm
  Closed Tuesdays, except public holidays
• Art Deco open daily
  28 Jun - 5 Oct 08
  Open public holidays except:
  Christmas Day . Good Friday, Anzac Day 25 April (open 1–5pm)

Getting there

• Both Ian Potter Centre and the National Gallery of Victoria are within easy walking distance from each other on either side of Flinders street bridge (crossing the Yarra River)
• Train: Flinders Street station is directly opposite Federation Square across Swanston Street, where Ian Potter Centre is located.
• Tram: All trams running along Swanston Street provide direct access to both galleries. Flinders Street Trams provided direct access to the Ian Potter Centre.

Malthouse Theatre at The CUB Malthouse

Some of Australia’s greatest playwrights have been nurtured by the Malthouse and its resident Playbox Theatre company. Dramatists like David Williamson, Louis Nowra and Joanna Murray-Smith all rose to fame on this stage with plays that drew attention to issues of power, sex and what it means to be Australian. The Malthouse was originally built in 1892 as a brewery and malting works, and serves as one of Melbourne’s most progressive theatres.

A cosy bar is also open to let audiences wind down or get on their soapbox after the night’s performance.

Contact details

• Address: 113 Sturt Street, Southbank VICTORIA 3006, AUSTRALIA
• Website: http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au
• Admin Email: +61 3 9685 5100
• Box Office: +61 3 9685 5111

Sovereign Hill

Experience Victoria’s grand days of goldrush at this replica 1850s town, complete with dusty streets, horse-drawn carriages and people in period costume. Pan for real gold in the diggings, descend 13 metres underground into the mines where the biggest gold nugget was ever found, and visit the local sweet shop and the bakery for traditional goodies. Daily performances bring to life the township founded on gold, with highlights that include a $50,000 gold pour at the Gold Smelting Works. At night, Sovereign Hill stages the spectacular sound and light show "Blood on the Southern Cross", which tells the story of Australia's only civil uprising – the Eureka Rebellion of 1854.

Contacts details

• Address: Bradshaw St, Ballarat
• Website: http://www.sovereignhill.com.au
• Email: enquiries@sovereignhill.com.au
• Phone: (03) 5337 1100

Getting there

• Car, Rail and Bus Information
  

Old Melbourne Gaol

Culture celebrates history – the good and the bad. A visit to Victoria's first prison, the Old Melbourne Gaol, offers a chilling glimpse into the lives of hardened criminals during history-making periods like the Eureka Stockade Rebellion and the Gold Rush. Take a night tour through the imposing bluestone institution, where 136 people hanged, including runaway bushranger Ned Kelly. This fascinating and eerie tour sheds light on the forbidden secrets of prison life by candlelight, as you tour rooms and corridors filled with macabre death masks (used to study criminals) and punishment equipment of the day including lashing triangles and the hangman’s box.

Contacts details

• Address: Russell Street (between La Trobe and Victoria Sts)
• Website: http://www.oldmelbournegaol.com.au
• Email:
  General Enquiries: info@oldmelbournegaol.com.au
  Group Bookings: bookings@oldmelbournegaol.com.au
• Phone:
  General Enquiries (03) 5337 1100
  Group Bookings: (03) 8663 7228
• Opening Hours:
  Open daily from 9:30am to 5:00pm (closed Christmas Day and Good Friday)

Getting there

• Train – Melbourne Central Station (2 min walk)
• Car - Melways Reference: 2B F12
• Tram – City Circle Tram Stop - corner of La Trobe and Russell Street: Tram No. 24, Stop No. 7