Eureka Tower

That skyscraper dominating the Southbank skyline is not just tall. It is telling you a story about rebellion, and most people walk past without reading it. Eureka Tower stands two hundred and ninety-seven metres high with ninety-one storeys, and every design element references the Eureka Stockade of eighteen fifty-four, the armed uprising of gold miners against colonial authorities in Ballarat that is considered a founding moment of Australian democracy.

Read the building from top to bottom. The gold crown at the summit represents the gold rush itself. The red stripe running vertically down the building represents the blood spilt during the revolt. The blue glass cladding that covers most of the facade represents the blue background of the Eureka flag. And the white lines crossing the blue are the Southern Cross stars from that flag. The top ten floors have windows coated in twenty-four carat gold. Actual gold, layered onto the glass. When the afternoon sun hits those floors, they light up like a beacon.

The observation deck on the eighty-eighth floor, branded as Melbourne Skydeck, is the highest public vantage point in a building in the Southern Hemisphere at two hundred and eighty-five metres. On a clear day, you can see the Dandenong Ranges, the You Yangs, and Port Phillip Bay stretching to the horizon. Construction began in August two thousand and two and the building was officially opened in October two thousand and six. There is also The Edge, a glass cube that slides out from the building and hangs over the void three hundred metres above the street. It starts opaque and turns transparent once you are out there. People scream. Every single time.