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