Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Own Lunch: Batman, Swanston and Hoddle

Designer: Alison weaver and Paul Quinn

Year: 1993

Bronze sculpture

Officially named the ‘Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Own Lunch: Batman, Swanston and Hoddle’, this whimsical, life-sized sculpture pays homage to Melbourne’s three pioneers, returning them to the city’s streets as pedestrians observing Melbourne’s development throughout time

Ceremony and Vehicle for Conveying Spirit

Designer: Maurie Hughes

Year: 1996

Silicon bronze, galvanised and mild steel

This monumental sculpture by Melbourne artist Maurie Hughes has been designed to take advantage of the movement of traffic and pedestrians. The use of staggered plinths explores the concept of 'journey' and the promps of ceremonial processions. The work also references Chris Reynolds' A History Apparatus, which is located on the same median strip on the corner of Bourke Street. The isea of 'spirit' is conveyed symbolically in the flue, through which forces trapped under earth can be released into the air. This element of the complex sculpture, with its urn , archways and sentinels, is central to the commission

Painted Poles (1)

Designer: Jennifer McCarthy

Year: 1992

Metal Poles

Jennifer McCarthy's sculpture comprises three poles painted in a colourful, highly decoratice style. This work is not considered permanent. The City of Melbourne commissioned thwe work as part of the Swanston Street Walk Public Art Project.

Maxims of Behaviour

Designer: Alexander Knox
Year: 2008
Kinetic light installation

Maxims of Behaviour plays across the distinctive 10-storey, 1960s' facade of Royal Mail House. Set among the giant billboards and screens of the south-eastern corner of the Bourke and Swanston Streets, Alexander Knox's Kinetic light work can be seen each winter evening from dusk till late, until 2012.
The work features colourful abstract imagery that moves spectral-like across the facade transforming the site into a dynamic entity, a living thing that inhabits the area. The imagery is produced from abstract video footage of the city's light, colour and movement, and it acts as a mimetic device that echoes and feed soff it's surrounds. The installation becomes an integral part of the nightscape, complementing the floodlit surroundings, creating an organic synthisis of movement and light. Thetitle of the work is inspired by Lewis carroll's poem 'Phantasmagoria;, in which the author draws an insitful parallel between ghosts and us.
Some 88 multi-coloured LED lights mounted on the ledges of the building facade produce the moving montage of light, This matrix of computer-controlled lights projects onto the surface of the building, with each light effectively acting as a pixel. Each night the average energy consumption is equivalent to running a 2400W small electric heater. The LEDs have a lifespan of 100,000 hours; they are very low maitenance and run on green energy

The Public Purse

Designer: Simon Perry
Year: 1994
Clalca red-granite and stainless-steel

In creating The Public Purse, Perry was interested making an object that would work both conceptually and poetically, while still addressing the context of the site. The Public Purse engages with its environment through its clear reference to the commercial nature of the area. Perry says of this red-granite sculpture that it 'signifies an interaction between the city and citizens, the public and the private'. Looking like nothing less than an oversized dropped purse, this public seating can be located anywhere in the retail district without ever looking out of place.

Resting Place

Designer: Bronwyn snow
Year: 1994
Steel and jarrah seat

Resting Place is a sculpture that combines aesthetics and function. Commissioned throught the City of Melbourne's Percent for Art Program, this double sided seat of steel and jarrah offers the urban flaneur a place to rest, take stock and take in the urban environment. The decorative elements of the seat include two serpents - traditionally a symbol of healing, rebirth and female power - towering sunflowers, which wathc over the seated, and ivy.

Another View, Site 1

Designer: Ray Thomas and Megan Evans
Year: 1994
Red granite and brass paving inlay

This is one of several public artworks commisioned for the Another View walking trail, only some of which remain. The trail was created to recognise the shared history of paritcular city sites. Located outside Parliamnet House, this paving inlay uses Caremony, a painting created during the 1980's  by Wurundjeri ngungareta (headman) William Barak, to reference the past of this site as a traditional ceremonial ground and a meeting place for the people of the Kulin nation

Angel

Designer: Deborah Halpern
Year: 1988
Ceramic, steel and concrete

A renowned sculptor and ceramicist, Melbourne-based Halpern pushed the boundaries of ceramic art with Angel, creating a semi-abstract work that resembles a three-legged llama in form and on which more thatn 4000 individually cut and hand painted tiles are fixed to it's concrete and steel armature. The colourful images adorning this work reveal Picasso's influence on Halpern's art. Since 2005, Angel has been sited on the banks of the Yarra in Birrarung Marr, where the viewers can for the first time see it from all sides. it remains part of the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Weathervanes

Designer: Daniel Jenkins
Year: 1993
Hand-beaten copper sculpture with gold-leaf detail

Each of the four weathervanes takes the shape of an animal: a horse, pig, fish and bird. They are positioned high on tram poles to give aerial performances with each gust of wind. The vanes have been conceived to reprasent specific aspects of Melbourne: the bird symbolises the city's parks and gardens; the horse symbolises its culture and sport; the fish refers to its waterways; and the pig reprasents the city's hope and future - the latter a tongue-in-cheek reference to 'pigs can fly'.

Time and Tide

Designer: Akio Makigawa
Year: 1994
Bluestone, white marble, bronze and stainless-steel

Time and Tide was commisioned by the City of Melbourne throught its Percent for Art Program. Like many of Makigawa's works, this sculpture is monumental is scale. It comprises horizontal and vertical elements, which extend some 20 metres over its Town Hall Plaze site. Fibre optics are embedded in the concrete and the light they emmit creates a different mood night and day. The individual elements of Time and Tide loosely represent:

• a tree - signifying grouth, knowledge and the land
• a flame - signifying rebirth and trancendence
• and a shell - signifying the ocean

Beyond the Ocean of Existence

Designer: Loretta Quinn
Year: 1993
Bronze sculpture n granite plinth

Beyond the Ocean of Existence demonstrates Quinn's reflective approach, and it is a work replete with religious references. There is a sense of 'folk religion' in much of her art, and whether the symbols derive from the mystery of a Latin mass or the animist universe, a Celtic myth or a Japanese garden, she says they are 'visual references to which other will relate'.
A painted bronze sculpture, Beyond the Ocean of Existance comprises of a single large ball surrounded by eight bronze coils. A series of smaller balls and lengths of column, both triangular and circular in cross-section, surround these coils. At the sculpture's top is a stylised angel. The work is mounted on a granite plinth of dressed and polished blocks

Burke and Wills Monument

Designer: Charles Summers
Year: 1865
Bronze statue with granite pedestal

The ill-fated journey of Bourke and Wills is one of the most recited episodes in Australian history, and one that Summers would have a role in memorialising. Burke and Wills' journey began amid glorious public sentiment of hope and pride as their team set off for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Among other things, the publicly funded expedition would help solve the puzzle of what lay in Australia's interior, and at a time of interstate rivalry it would bring triumph to Victoria. But the expedition ended as a sorry tale of rash decision-making and unfortunate timing, and ultimately with the deaths of Bourke, Wills and Gray.

On 2 November 1861, news of the death of Bourke and Wills reached Melbourne, and within days greif swept the city; more than 40,000 people are said to have paid their last respects to the fallen heroes. The Victorian government announced a memorial would be erected and Charles Summers submitted the winning design. Burke stands to the left of the seated Wills, his forearm resting on his companion's shoulder. A book lays open in Wills' lap. Mounted atop granite blocks, the statue also features bronze bas-relief plaques depicting events during the expedition.

Larry LaTrobe

Designer: Pamela Irving

Year: 1992 and 1996

Bronze sculpture

He is a life-size dingo-like dog who surveys the activity in City Square. Larry was based on Irving's dog, Lucy, and on her uncle, Larry. She claims that the dog is iconic to Australia, and from the moment it was unveiled, Larry LaTrobe became one of Melbourne's most loved sculptures.

Despite being anchored to the site with 30 centimeter bolts, Larry disappeared in August 1995. Council immediately launched a campaign for his return, but to no avail. On hearing of the theft, Larry's most ardent admirer, Mr. Peter Kolliner, who had owned the foundry where he was cast, offered to produce another one. Irving altered the new Larry's colouring to affect some individuality (he has a redder tinge), but in all other respects he is the same.

Larry was officially welcomed home on the 16th of September 1996. Melbourne band Jugularity entertained the crowd with an ode to the sculptures. 'Larry Come Home - a dogumentary.' sung to the tune of 'Advance Australia Fair.'

The Echo

Designer: Edward Ginger
Year: 1996
Steel plate sculpture with polyurethane paint

Ginger's non-figurative  The Echo takes it's inspiration from Melbourne's rich and diverse cultures, particulary it's Asian cultures. Both the design and vibrant sienna colouring of the work have strong assosiations with Eastern spirituality.
The Echo is sited close to Chinatown and what was, at the time of installation, the bank of Hong Kong, with the intention of connecting the work to it's cultural environment. The design also seeks to intergrate disparate aspects; Ginger has incorporated seating to encourage passes-by to linger and to interact with the sculpture, and to see it as part of the streetscape rather than as an interloper from the lofty world of art.

A History Apparatus - Vessel, Craft and Beacon.

Designer: Chris Reynolds
Year: 1993
Steel and fibreglass sculpture on bitumen, concrete and bluestone foundation.

This sculpture was created as a part of the National Metal Industry Sculpture Project which was an innovative program that aimed to establish links between art and the greater community.

The work comprises of three main elements (the vessel, craft, beacon).  The main components of the sculpture is 24 metres in length. The components refer to concepts that anchor us down in life:

• vessel - the past
• craft - the present
• beacon - the future

Federation Bells

Designers: Neil McLachlan, Anton Hasell
Bronze-alloy bells on galvanised-steel poles
Year: 2002
Owned by Arts Victoria

The federation Bells installation comprises of 39 upturned bells of different sizes, mounted on poles ranging from two to six metres high. The size of each bell determines the pitch, and collectively the pitch ranges over four octaves. Most of the bells are harmonic and very pure in their tone; seven are polytonal, so able able to play more than one pitch with a single hammer strike.
Seven Australian composers were commissioned to create paices of four to five minutes for the launch of the bells. Computer-controlled hammers strike the bells to the tune of the programmed compositions.
In 2008, the city of melbourne launched a website ( http://www.federationbells.com.au/ ) to allow members of the public to compose their own paices for the bells.
By walking among the bells or listneing to them from up to 100 meters away, visitors have a different aural experience of the music.