Shrine Reserve Landscape Management Plan
The Shrine Reserve is one of Melbourne’s most significant designed landscapes and is the setting for a unique experience of landscape in the city. The yearly closure of Swanston Street and St Kilda Road on ANZAC Day symbolically re-connects the space of the Reserve with the civic space of the city, temporarily extending the place of commemoration into the heart of Melbourne’s daily life. The city stands aside, to remember.
Stepping over the boundary from the public space of the street into the Reserve begins a journey of remembrance. Climbing the hill to the steps of the Shrine becomes an ascension from the profane to the sacred, from the civic to the monumental and from the every-day to the transcendental. The Reserve makes this journey possible.
It is in this context that the Landscape Management Plan has been prepared. Building on a detailed inventory and study of the Shrine Reserve, including extensive consultation with user groups and stakeholders, the Management Plan proposes a long tern vision that will involve considerable, but gradual changes to the physical fabric of the Shrine Reserve. These changes aim to re-establish much of the original design intent for the Reserve; to respond to the needs of the recently opened Shrine Visitor Centre and the proposed Galleries of Remembrance; and to implement a new overlay of sustainable design and management principles.
The Management Plan seeks to recognise and strengthen the very special role that the Shrine Reserve plays in the life of Victorian service men and women, and their relatives, friends, and supporters and to the Victorian public and visitors. The unique function of the Reserve as a place for public ceremonies of commemoration, both large and small, is retained and strengthened as a secular ‘temenos’ – a memorial parkland.
