Melbourne 1956: The Swimming Stadium

The venue for the swimming, diving and water polo competitions on the Olympic Games and residential to the primary enclosed diving pool in Olympic historical past, the centre is now used as a coaching and administrative base by the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) and by Collingwood Football Club’s Australian guidelines and netball groups. Its amenities embody a world-class gymnasium, a 25m lap pool, an exhibition house, company occasion and performance rooms, and a hydrotherapy spa. The centre’s group and coaching amenities are additionally open to leisure athletes and host grass-roots leisure and sports activities initiatives.

An enduring landmark of the 1956 Olympic Games, the Holden Centre is a major constructing in architectural, historic and symbolic phrases, and is listed within the Victorian Heritage Register. An early instance of a pre-tensioned steel-framed development, it gained many awards when it opened.

After the Olympic Games, the stadium was utilized by the general public and for nationwide competitions. Demand for indoor swimming pools was restricted as a result of Melbourne’s in depth variety of seashores, nevertheless, and the Olympic pool was crammed in as a part of renovation work in 1983 and changed by a parquetry flooring. Extended in capability, the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre, because it was recognized on the time, turned town’s primary leisure venue, internet hosting live shows by Elton John and Queen and a variety of main indoor sporting occasions. It additionally turned the house of basketball in Victoria, with 4 of the state’s golf equipment utilizing it. A fireplace within the late Nineties marked the top of its use as a multi-purpose venue. The constructing was renovated as soon as extra in 2002, a mission that was overseen by one among its authentic architects and which noticed it return to its authentic form: an eye catching inverted pyramid.

The Swimming Stadium adopted its present identify in 2015, when its amenities have been prolonged as a part of an AUD 25 million funding within the web site.