Melbourne Convention Centre
The old Convention Centre on the opposite side of the Yarra River was opened in May 1990 and has hosted thousands of conventions and meetings. The building was originally intended to be used by the Melbourne Museum but Jeff Kennett intervened during construction to have the building used as a convention centre.
The new Convention Centre, on land adjacent to the Exhibition Centre, was completed in 2009. At a cost of A$1 billion, the development consists of a 5541 seat Plenary Hall that can be divided into three separate theatres, 32 meeting rooms of various sizes, a grand banquet room as well as a Hilton hotel, office, residential and retail space. It was developed by a consortium led by Brookfield Multiplex and Plenary Group and designed by Larry Oltmanns. The new centre uses a range of features in order to achieve a 6 Star Green Star environmental rating and to become the first convention centre in the world with that rating. The architects for the development were NH Architecture and Woods Bagot.
The new Melbourne Convention Centre was awarded the Australian Construction Achievement Award in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Melbourne Convention And Exhibition Centre
Famous quotes containing the words convention and/or centre:
“By convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by
convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.”
—Democritus (c. 460–400 B.C.)
“The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)