MELBOURNE NEWS

Culture and heritage

Treasures on show: browse the City Collection

23 November 2017

Explore Melbourne’s most fascinating objects, and the stories behind them, on our new City Collection website.

From the city’s first brick and unrealised design plans to Moomba relics and an Olympic torch, the City of Melbourne has collected 8000 items of cultural material since the 1850s, valued at $64 million.

‘Our City Collection ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.’

Councillor Rohan Leppert, Chair of the Arts, Culture and Heritage Portfolio, said the new website will appeal to art buffs, historians, lovers of kitsch and anyone with an interest in Melbourne’s history.

‘From stuffy portraits and ceremonial garb to photos of potholes and drawings of a Melbourne that might have been, our City Collection ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, with everything in between,’ Cr Leppert said.

‘What makes it so special is that it’s big enough to reflect the city and its narratives, yet intimate enough to stay connected to the streets and its stories.’

More than 1000 of the eclectic items are now available to browse online, with another 3000 to be added over the next year.

Highlights
• The piano Paul McCartney played during a reception for The Beatles at Town Hall in 1964, leading an impromptu singalong.
• A certificate presented to Nelson Mandela in 1990, making him an Honorary Freeman of the City of Melbourne, soon after his release from prison.
• Town Hall murals by the renowned Napier Waller, who relearnt his craft with his non-dominant hand after losing his right arm during World War I.
• The $8 million Town Hall Grand Organ, which features 10,000 pipes and uses ninety thousand cubic feet of air.
• A brick from the first brick house built in the City of Melbourne, on the corner of Queen and Bourke streets.
• A portrait of Mayor Samuel Amess by famous Australian painter Tom Roberts, one of the few artworks that survived the Town Hall fire of 1925.
• An original mayoral chain worth $1.3 million, handmade by early Australian goldsmiths.

For more information, visit City Collection.

Share this story

You may also like
Big skies: Bebe Backhouse in Aboriginal Melbourne

Big skies: Bebe Backhouse in Aboriginal Melbourne

A lifetime’s worth of creative thinking infuses Bebe Backhouse as he works to shift power back to Aboriginal communities in Narrm. Even as a child growing up in a tiny town on a remote peninsula in the Kimberley, a powerful force called Bebe Backhouse to Narrm. “I was...

Five unforgettable experiences from First Nations creatives

Five unforgettable experiences from First Nations creatives

Hear techno played on a colossal organ, express yourself with “a Faboriginal kid from the bush” and be transported to Saskatchewan when YIRRAMBOI festival returns in May.  YIRRAMBOI means "tomorrow” in the languages of the Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung people. The...

Meet the world for Cultural Diversity Week in Melbourne

Meet the world for Cultural Diversity Week in Melbourne

Did you know our municipality is home to people from 160 cultural backgrounds, who speak 150 languages and practise 80 faiths? This includes our city’s Aboriginal people who represent the oldest continuing living culture in the world. Fifty-five per cent of...

Female filmmakers shine with new arts funding

Female filmmakers shine with new arts funding

Be mesmerised by stunning films made by women, see epic photography adorn city streets, and unleash your inner author thanks to arts organisations we’re supporting with two-year funding. Our Arts and Creative Investment Partnership program backs small to medium arts...

Subscribe to our newsletter

Keep up with what's happening in the City of Melbourne by subscribing to the Melbourne newsletter.

You have successfully subscribed!