Melbourne loves an installation. We’ve got the soaring Arts Centre spire, laneways filled with street art, and that hotel on Eastlink that’s just big enough to make you do a double-take. Fitzroy had a skull-faced banana, and Beach Road cyclists are watched over by a lifesize horse. And who among us hasn’t gazed wistfully from a taxi at the Cheesestick, glad to be home? We have decorated our city with jewels.
And then we have Federation Square.
I remember hearing, during its construction, that we would “come to love it” and that it was a “future cult icon”. One day, Melburnians would recognise it as a brutalist relic. It would be ugly-hot, like Adam Driver.
And, look, buildings don’t have to be beautiful. Melbourne is also home to some incredible functional eyesores. Doncaster Shoppingtown. The aquarium. Southern Cross station. Monash University’s Menzies building will make your eyes bleed but it gets the job done.
Fed Square isn’t that, either. In fact, 20 years on, I’m not sure anyone knows quite what it is.
A recent review suggests visitors to the compound “struggle to find specific destinations”, which is hardly surprising given the design strategy of “drop a bunch of old tiles wherever you want”.
The proposed solution is to divide the space into five distinct zones. They will be colour-coded and signposted, with names like “The Square” and “Federation Square East” (both of which sound, to this writer, quite similar to the existing name, but I am open-minded). Digital “totems” will greet visitors with new signage and pointier arrows (I assume), making it easier to bypass the chaos and head directly to their destinations.
Now, Fed Square is an easy target – after all, it does look like something a parent of small children might step on in the dark. It’s always been controversial. Flawed, weird. Plans like these don’t help as much as they remind us that it’s still an issue that needs fixing, two decades on.
But maybe the problem isn’t that Fed Square is too hectic.
Maybe we’re the ones who need to lighten up.
Love or hate it, Fed Square hums with beautiful chaos. At this very moment, the place is literally full of giant eyeballs. ACMI just put on a live orchestral performance of Untitled Goose Game, for crying out loud. There are staircases at odd angles, a giant TV screen, walls made entirely of glass, and a great view of the Flinders Street clocks.
Hard to navigate, sure. But since when was “knowing where you’re going” and “being able to find your way out again” so important?
In a city famous for its grid pattern, where Melburnians only have the option of walking in straight lines, Fed Square is a place for respite. Like reflecting in the State Library reading room or breathing the sweet air outside Haigh’s, it might be a chance to escape the bustle and rigour of city life. To stop travelling east-to-west and start meandering instead.
Let’s ditch the digital totems. Fed Square should be even more disorganised, winding and weaving to make us absolutely stonkingly lost. I want to catch a tram along St Kilda Road into a portal to another dimension, trying to get to the Transport Public Bar and ending up at my childhood home. I want the Visitors’ Centre transformed into a hall of mirrors, where Melbourne lord mayor, Sally Capp, spins me in circles before pushing me into the urban wilderness.
It’s time to remind Melbourne of what was promised 20 years ago, when builders first broke ground on this iconic corner. Not functional or useful, but a planned catastrophe.
Tear down the signs. Turn off the displays. Let Federation Square’s freak flag fly.
