The Royal Exhibition Building is a building housing many exhibitions, event connected to the Melbourne Museum. The building is listed as a UNESCO Heritage Site in 2004 as one of the most impressive of its kind in the world. It is located in the central business district at 9 Nicholson Street in the Carlton Gardens, Melbourne. It is surrounded by the Victoria, Nicholson, Carlton and Rathdowne streets.

The building was designed by Joseph Reed who took inspiration from the Florence Cathedral for his eclectic design. He also created the Melbourne Town Hall and the State Library of Victoria. The main pavilions followed the architectural style of different European buildings in Normandy, Caen and Paris.

The construction started in 1979. The Royal Exhibition Building was meant to house the 1880-1881 Melbourne International Exhibition. It also hosted the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition that celebrated a hundred years since the settlement of Australia by Europeans. The first Australian Parliament also took place there in 1901 after the country was upgraded to Commonwealth status. The Victorian government used the exhibition building for the next 26 years.

For the most part of the 20th century the building was used for various needs. It housed basketball, weightlifting and wrestling competitions during the 1956 Summer Olympics. Later, it was used for industrial fairs, boat and car shows, dances, festivals as well as for public examinations. The municipal government considered demolishing the aging building to construct modern office buildings in the 1950s. The great ballroom was demolished in 1979. There was a certain public outcry and it was decided to keep the building.

The building was restored in the 1980s and was granted the Royal in its name by Princess Alexandra on one of her visits to New Zealand. The campaign for the building to be listed inn the World Heritage List was started in 1999 and brought results in 2004 making it the first building in Australian to have such a status.

You can visit the building by car. Car hire companies in Melbourne are Europcar, Budget, Thrifty, Ace, Apex, Avis and Hertz.

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