Royal Exhibition Building Melbourne

In 2004, this site became Australia's first World Heritage Building, it is situated north of the Melbourne CBD in the Carlton Gardens. The Victorian capital hosted the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 and the Centennial International Exhibition in 1888. The Royal Exhibition Building is one of the last remaining world fair buildings that is still actively used for various functions and exhibitions. Designed and built in 1879 and 1888 by the father of Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, David Mitchell, the Royal Exhibition Building features not only Renaissance and Lombardic, but other architectural styles, too. Before Canberra became the nation’s capital city, the building was home to Australia’s first Parliament in 1901, just after Federation. When UNESCO debated the building’s listing, it was decided that it well fulfilled the official criterion of “exhibiting an important interchange of human values over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town planning or landscape design."