Landmark Australia and Oceania
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is a big art museum in Melbourne, Australia. Inside, its Great Hall has a ceiling made of colored glass!
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art museum on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, Australia. Its building, designed by the architect Roy Grounds, opened in 1968. It has walls of bluestone, a water wall at the front and a Great Hall with a stained-glass ceiling by Leonard French.
The National Gallery of Victoria began in 1861 as a museum of art in Melbourne's Public Library. Its St Kilda Road building, designed by Roy Grounds and opened on 20 August 1968, was the first stage of the Arts Centre complex. The Victorian Heritage Register calls it one of Victoria's most notable modernist buildings.
Photo: Lakeyboy at English Wikipedia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover the gallery
The National Gallery of Victoria is in Melbourne, a city in Australia.
It is full of art. People come to see its collection and special exhibitions.
The National Gallery of Victoria, often called the NGV, stands on St Kilda Road in Melbourne. Its building opened in 1968 and was Melbourne's first major gallery built just for art.
The Victorian Heritage Register calls it Victoria's premier art gallery. It was the first part of a larger group of arts buildings, the Arts Centre.
The Victorian Heritage Register describes the NGV's St Kilda Road building as one of the largest civic works undertaken in Victoria in the fifty years after World War I, and the first stage of the Arts Centre complex. It gave Melbourne its first major, purpose-built art gallery and, the register says, set new standards for exhibition layout, art storage and conservation when it opened in 1968.
The NGV acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung People as the Traditional Owners of the land on which it is built.
- Where
- St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia
- Architect
- Roy Grounds
- Opened
- 20 August 1968
- Heritage
- Victorian Heritage Register (H1499)
A new home for the art
Long ago, the art was kept in a library building.
People wanted a home just for the art. They collected 40,000 signatures to ask for one!
The gallery began in 1861 as a museum of art inside the Public Library on Swanston Street. In 1905 a large gift, the Felton Bequest, paid for a big collection of art, and people began to call for a new building.
In the 1940s, 40,000 signatures were collected in support of an arts center south of the Yarra River. Building started in 1962, and the new gallery opened on 20 August 1968.
A museum of art opened in the Public Library in Swanston Street in 1861. The Felton Bequest of 1905 paid for a large collection, and calls for a separate gallery grew; in the 1940s supporters proposed a combined arts center on Wirth's Park, Crown land south of the Yarra River once used by circuses, and collected 40,000 signatures.
The architects Grounds, Romberg and Boyd were appointed in 1959. Construction began in 1962, the interior was finished in 1967, and the gallery was officially opened on 20 August 1968; the register says about 2,000 people entered in the first hour on the next day.
A gallery like a castle
The gallery has walls of bluestone and moats of water.
At the front there is a wall with water running over it!
The building has a bold geometric shape on a huge scale, with wide walls of bluestone and long moats of water. In 1960 Roy Grounds and the gallery's director visited galleries in Europe and the United States, and two buildings they saw in Italy shaped his castle-like design.
At the front, facing St Kilda Road, is a water wall that Grounds designed himself; it was moved during the 1999-2003 redevelopment. The heritage register says touching it is part of what people love about the gallery.
The register calls the building one of Victoria's most notable modernist buildings and a major work of Roy Grounds: its monumental scale, wide expanses of bluestone, extensive moats and bold geometric form make a powerful architectural statement. In 1960 Grounds and the director, Eric Westbrook, spent three months visiting galleries in Europe and the United States; the Palazzo di Capodimonte near Naples and the Castello Sforzesco in Milan influenced his castle-like design.
Grounds designed the water wall himself, and Grant and Mary Featherston designed the furniture.
A ceiling of colored glass
The Great Hall has a ceiling made of colored glass.
Some visitors lie down on the floor to look up at it!
The Great Hall has a stained-glass ceiling made by the artist Leonard French between 1963 and 1967. The NGV says it is still the world's largest cut-glass ceiling.
The heritage register says lying down to gaze up at the ceiling is part of what people love about the gallery, and some families have done it for generations.
Leonard French created the Great Hall's stained-glass ceiling between 1963 and 1967; the NGV calls it the world's largest cut-glass ceiling. The register lists it, the water wall and the Featherston furniture among the commissioned works that make the building significant.
It also names sensory experiences, touching the water wall and lying down gazing up at the ceiling, as part of the gallery's social meaning, in some cases across several generations.
- Great Hall ceiling
- Leonard French, 1963–1967
- Construction began
- 1962
- Refurbished
- 1999–2003
- Signatures of support
- 40,000
From high above
This photo was taken from high up in a tall tower.
You can see the gallery's wide roof. A roof of glass sits in the middle, and a green garden is beside it.
This photo was taken on 23 November 2007 from level 88 of Eureka Tower, looking down on the gallery. It shows the wide roof with a large glass roof in the middle, pale green roof sections, dark walls and a garden with lawns and trees.
The gallery closed for a refurbishment from 1999 to 2003, led by Mario Bellini and Metier3. Today the building is called NGV International.
The photograph (Lakeyboy, released into the public domain) was taken from level 88 of Eureka Tower on 23 November 2007. It looks down on the long flat roof with its central glass roof and pale green roof sections, the dark outer walls, a garden of lawns and trees, and a building with a triangular roof beside it.
Apart from the 1999-2003 closure, when Mario Bellini and Metier3 redeveloped it, the gallery has operated continuously since 1968. The NGV's first exhibition in the new building, The Field (opened 21 August 1968), showed seventy-four works by forty artists.
Amazing facts
-
Some visitors lie on the floor to look up at the glass ceiling!
The NGV says Leonard French's Great Hall ceiling is the world's largest cut-glass ceiling.
Created by Leonard French between 1963 and 1967, the Great Hall ceiling remains, in the NGV's words, the world's largest cut-glass ceiling.
-
Circuses once came to the land where the gallery stands!
Before the gallery was built, its site was home to several circuses, an amusement park and a dance hall.
The heritage register says Wirth's Park, the Crown land where the gallery was built, hosted several circuses, including the Wirth Brothers' circus, an amusement park and a dance hall in the first half of the 20th century.
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On the first day, about 2,000 people came in during the first hour!
When the gallery opened to the public in 1968, about 2,000 people walked in during the first hour.
The register records that the gallery opened to the public on the day after the official opening of 20 August 1968, and that an estimated 2,000 people entered in the first hour.
Words to know
- gallery
- a building where art is shown
- stained glass
- colored glass put together to make a picture or pattern
- bluestone
- a dark gray-blue stone used for building
- moat
- a channel of water around a building
- architect
- a person who designs buildings
- modernist
- a style of the 1900s with plain shapes and little decoration
Discovery challenge
-
Which city is the National Gallery of Victoria in?
In which Australian city is the National Gallery of Victoria?
On St Kilda Road in which city does NGV International stand?
- Melbourne
- Perth
- Darwin
Show the answer
Melbourne
Melbourne!
Melbourne, in Victoria.
Melbourne.
-
What is the Great Hall's ceiling made of?
What did Leonard French make the Great Hall's ceiling from?
What material is Leonard French's 1963-1967 Great Hall ceiling?
- Colored glass
- Wood
- Gold
Show the answer
Colored glass
Colored glass!
Colored glass: it is a stained-glass ceiling.
Stained (cut) glass.
-
When did the new gallery open?
In which year did the gallery's St Kilda Road building open?
In which year was the St Kilda Road building officially opened, on 20 August?
- 1968
- 1861
- 2003
Show the answer
1968
In 1968!
In 1968.
1968.
-
What runs down the wall at the front of the gallery?
What did Roy Grounds design for the front of the gallery?
Which feature fronting St Kilda Road, designed by Grounds himself, is on the heritage register's list?
- Water
- Sand
- Ice
Show the answer
Water
Water!
A water wall.
The water wall fronting St Kilda Road.
-
Who designed the gallery building?
Which architect designed the National Gallery of Victoria's building?
Whose modernist design is the St Kilda Road building, described as the peak of five decades of practice?
- Roy Grounds
- Leonard French
- Mario Bellini
Show the answer
Roy Grounds
Roy Grounds!
Roy Grounds.
Roy Grounds; Mario Bellini and Metier3 redeveloped it in 1999-2003.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain what an art gallery is for.
- Describe how stained glass makes colored light.
- Explain how people in a community can help build a public place.
Recommended ages: 4 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why do you think people wanted a building just for art?
- What would you put in a gallery if you could design one?
- Why might people like to touch a water wall or lie down under a glass ceiling?
Try at home or in class
- Tape pieces of colored cellophane to a window and watch the colored light they make.
- Find Melbourne and the Yarra River on a map of Australia.
Key vocabulary: gallery, stained glass, bluestone, moat, architect, modernist
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- National Gallery of Victoria (H1499) , Victorian Heritage Database (Heritage Council of Victoria)
- 50th anniversary of NGV International , National Gallery of Victoria
- File:National Gallery of Victoria from Eurkea Tower.jpg , Wikimedia Commons
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Picture credits
- Photo: Lakeyboy at English Wikipedia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons · source