BOURKE PLACE TAPESTRY

Built for AMP in 1991, Bourke Place was marketed as having the "timeless quality of a masterpiece". Almost two decades later, that timeless quality still places Bourke Place at the forefront of Melbourne's premium grade commercial office buildings.The quality of materials and finishes is evident throughout the development. Moreover, the high level of maintenance of the building over the building's commercial life has ensured that the quality of the original design has been maintained. There are a number of artworks on display here, but two of them in the foyer are particularly striking and well-suited to our Monday mural meme.

The first  is a tapestry woven in 1990 by the Australian Tapestry Workshop and called "Melbourne"  on a design by Murray Walker. It is 5 x 5.8 metres and the weavers were Grazyna Bleja, Tim Gresham, Sonja Hansen, Barbara Mauro, Andrea May and Hannah Rother.

In researching this project, artist Murray Walker looked to the first grid plan for Melbourne,drawn up to the specifications of Governor Bourke in 1837. This grid is the foundation of the ordered layout of Melbourne’s CBD in its current incarnation. The work’s juxtaposition of the old (the maps and the grid) and the new (the vivid colour of the grid and abstraction in the sky and landscape) leads the viewer to contemplate the development and transitions of the city of Melbourne. The mammoth scale of the tapestry also helps to generate a sense of the vast physical landscape that metropolitan Melbourne now occupies.

The second art work from 2004, is in glass and is called "Passage", created by artist Warren Langley. It illustrates the notion of "passing through" and represents the journey through life and towards enlightenment.

This post is part of the Monday Murals meme.