A living, breathing forest, complete with waterways and bushfire scars, will be the main attraction of Melbourne's new museum when it opens in 2000. Plans for the $3 million Gallery of life, sometimes called "the blade", at the Melbourne Museum in the Carlton Gardens, were unveiled yesterday, showing a zoo, museum and botanical garden. The tall timber forests east of Melbourne are the inspiration for the exhibit, which is expected to last a century.
The gallery's "walls" are to be made of mesh, allowing outside elements to influence the transported forest and create and further enhance the living environment for visitors. The ambitious project is the most difficult challenge landscape architects Taylor and Cullity have faced.
Mr Kevin Taylor said the logistics of design and documenting the gallery were one challenge, while recreating the forest without disrupting the museum's building schedule was yet another. At its tip, the gallery will stand more than 30 metres high to accommodate the tall trees. Its interior 1485 square metres will become a forest and ecosystem in the centre of town.
About 6000 plants, from more than 80 species, will be planted in the gallery. Small animals from about 25 species including birds, fish and reptiles, as well as hundreds of insect species, will call the gallery home. Visitors will come into contact with the five "agents of change" which influence the life of a forest: water, earth, climate, fire and humans. Walking tracks will also take visitors beneath the ground to create a unique look at the inhabitants of the lakes and ponds.
While other exhibitions will change regularly, the museum hopes the Gallery of Life will attract visitors for decades to come. "It is going to be a living icon for Melbourne. In many ways it represents where museums are moving into the 21st century, this whole notion that there aren't necessarily any boundaries anymore," said the acting chief executive, Dr Ian Galloway. Dr Galloway hopes the controversy over the design of the gallery - locals have claimed the design blocks the view of the Royal Exhibition Building dome - will subside as Melburnians visit the museum.
"We certainly hope people will be engaged by the exhibition that we
have within that space and that people will see that the architecture was
really a response to what we wanted to put in there and not just an architectural
expression. "It has a real reason for being there and naturally
we hope people will become excited by the project and any former controversy
will become a secondary issue." The Gallery of Life is expected to draw
together elements of the museum's other sections, which will include a
children's museum, an Aboriginal centre called Bunjilaka, and social and
natural history exhibits.