Melbourne Museum

The opening of the Melbourne Museum in 2000 marked the end of a period in which the thematics, locations and corporate arrangements of Victoria’s nineteenth-century state museums were thoroughly overhauled. While the provocative siting and expressive architecture of the Melbourne Museum are emblematic of the political style of state premier Jeffrey Kennett, who led a Liberal (conservative) government from 1992 to 1999, the merging of colonial museums of natural sciences and technology to form the Museum of Victoria in 1983 provides a necessary point of reference for the Melbourne Museum project. [Introduction]