Building timeline

3 Jul 1854 Foundation stone laid
11 Feb 1856 Melbourne Public Library opens (central portion of Swanston Street frontage; now Swanston Street Welcome Zone)
24 May 1859 Queen's Reading Room opens (southern portion of Swanston Street frontage; now The Ian Potter Queen's Hall)
24 Dec 1864 Northern portion of Swanston Street frontage opens (now Hansen Hall)
1866 Intercolonial Exhibition buildings erected: Rotunda, Great Hall, iron annexe, north and south wings
1870 Swanston Street portico added
1875 McArthur Gallery opens (now Newspapers and Family History Reading Rooms)
1883 Electric lighting installed
2 Sep 1886 Barry Hall opens (now the Wheeler Centre)
Oct 1887 Buvelot Gallery opens (later named Swinburne Hall; now the Arts Reading Room)
1892 McCoy Hall (now Redmond Barry Reading Room), Stawell Gallery (now Cowen Gallery) and La Trobe Gallery (now Victoria Gallery) open
8 Aug 1892 Lending library opens (for a time in Swinburne Hall, now the Arts Reading Room, and also in what is now Mr Tulk cafe)
1899 Great Hall (which Redmond Barry had hoped would last ‘for centuries’) demolished
21 Apr 1906 Baldwin Spencer Hall opens (now Russell Street Welcome Zone)
1908 Rotunda demolished
14 Nov 1913 Domed Reading Room opens (formerly the Great Hall and Rotunda)
1928 October 22 South Rotunda opens
1940 North Rotunda opens
1963 Planetarium opens (now Pauline Gandel Children's Quarter)
6 Sep 1965 La Trobe Library opens (now the Conference Centre)
1968 National Gallery of Victoria relocates to St Kilda Road
27 Feb 1971 Lending library closes
1977 Public Record Office of Victoria leaves 328 Swanston Street
29 Feb 1980 Reference and Information Centre opens on ground floor of Dome building
1995 North-west courtyard glassed in to create new reading room (later the Genealogy Centre, now the Conversation Quarter)
3 Mar 1997 Trescowthick Information Centre opens (now Information Centre); Museum of Victoria closes before moving to Carlton Gardens
Jul 1998 Newspaper Reading room opens in glassed-over north-east courtyard (now Ideas Quarter)
2001 Keith Murdoch Gallery opens
2003 Domed Reading Room reopens as La Trobe Reading Room; Experimedia opens in the south-west courtyard (now Pauline Gandel Children's Quarter); Arts Reading Room (now Create Quarter), Cowen Gallery, Redmond Barry Reading Room and Heritage Collections Reading Room open
2017 Vision 2020 redevelopment works begin
21 Sep 2018 Russell Street Welcome Zone (formerly Journals & Magazines Reading Room), Newspaper and Family History Reading Rooms (formerly McArthur Gallery), Arts Reading Room (formerly Swinburne Gallery) and Isabella Fraser Room open
2019 Victoria Gallery (formerly La Trobe Gallery staff space), The Ian Potter Queen's Hall, Swanston Street Welcome Zone, The Quad (formerly Trescowthick Information Centre), Hansen Hall (formerly Palmer Hall), Pauline Gandel Children's Quarter (formerly Experimedia), Conversation Quarter (formerly the Courtyard), Ideas Quarter (formerly the Family History & Newspapers Room) and Create Quarter (formerly the Arts Reading Room) open