Melbourne City Square

The City Square is a pedestrian plaza and former civic centre located in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne, Australia. The square is currently bounded by Swanston Street, Collins Street, Flinders Lane and the Westin Hotel. Melbourne Town Hall (1870) and St Paul’s Cathedral (1891) are prominent landmarks to the north and south respectively. The square has been redeveloped several times and associated with a number of controversies over the years.

The square closed on 3 April 2017 in preparation for the construction of CBD South station.

The Melbourne CBD was originally laid out by Robert Hoddle in 1837 as a rectangular grid of 8 X 4 city blocks, with open space reserved around the edges. Like most other early Australian town layouts it lacked any kind of civic or open space within the grid, but reserved blocks or allotments for markets, public buildings and churches. This lack of any public space or sweeping boulevards was criticised as early as 1850, and proposals for public squares within the grid cropped up regularly from the 1850s to the 1950s.

When Sir Bernard Evans, architect and city councillor, was Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 1961, he was firmly of the view that a city square should be created between the Town Hall and the Cathedral, instead of a civic plaza with a new town hall on top of the rail yards opposite Flinders Street Station, or a space to the north or east of the Town Hall; but he could not convince his fellow Councillors. In 1966, when the Queen Victoria Building on the corner of Swanston and Collins Street, and the adjacent City Club Hotel opposite the town hall had been demolished pending future development, Council decided that was a good site for the long debated City Square, and purchased the land. Then began the process of acquiring properties along Swanston Street between the Town Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral, and east up to an including the Regent Theatre. Buildings purchased included the Cathedral Hotel, Cathedral House, Guy's Buildings (demolished 1969), Green's Building and the Town Hall Chambers (demolished 1971) as well as Wentworth House and Regency House on Flinders Lane. The Regent Theatre was also intended to be demolished, but was saved by a union ban.

...
Wikipedia