Virgin Australia Voyeur — May 2017

MAY 2017VIRGIN AUSTRALIA 127

ONCE KNOWN ASa city of industry, Geelong’s identity is being
reformed beyond its much-loved AFL team to emerge as a centre
for creative thinking. How better to announce this to the world
than through the mind-bending architecture of its library?
“Architecture of this quality can transform a landscape and
a community,” says Patti Manolis, CEO of Geelong Regional
Library Corporation. “It is capable of uniting people in pride and
bringing them together in forms of planned and unexpected
community connectedness. It can make a community feel
valued because it is worthy of such boldness and investment.”
Dreamt up over a decade ago as part of the Geelong Cultural
Precinct Masterplan, the Geelong Library & Heritage Centre, also
known as the Dome, was designed by ARM Architecture. The
vision was drawn from a strong architectural lineage in civic
buildings, such as the cathedrals of the Italian Renaissance. “The
challenges of the project lay in the vast scale of the ambition,”
says Manolis. “For the first time, the corporation is operating a

public library that includes bringing to life

heritage services, providing opportunities

to interact with the latest technology and

managing an extraordinary events space.”

The Dome has attracted the attention

of the wider world and was short-listed

for the Systematic Public Library of the

Year Award in 2016. ARM Architecture

also received the coveted Sir Zelman

Cowen Award for Public Architecture last

year, as well as the prestigious Victorian

Architecture Medal, for its work on the

landmark community building.

“The judges of the national award

described it as a vibrant and energised

vertical village that has revitalised the

cultural precinct and demonstrates the

capacity of libraries to be important places

of public social life, cultural values and

shared experience,” says Manolis.

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GEELONG LIBRARY & HERITAGE CENTRE
Geelong, Vic

CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP The Dome is
surrounded by public
parkland; kids can
play and learn in the
children’s area; the
building’s complex
architectural plans.