Today I am confronted by a complex of buildings that challenges my aesthetic sensibility to no end.

The unmistakable pastel hues of the Australian landscape and glass shards that mark Federation Square, jar significantly against the archetypal conservative Melbourne cityscape, exemplified in Flinders Street Station and St Paul’s Cathedral. Federation Square’s bold design – with angular steel holdings in place and angular panels that make up angular buildings, are a part of an external facade. This seems to turn its buildings into an abstract version of itself.

I am challenged by this design and I am ambivalent about this design, but I am also excited by a city that takes a chance and shoots a contemporary arrow through its traditional heart.

I am so pleased that both Melbournians and tourists alike have taken Fed Square to their hearts. It is an exciting hub of buskers, skate boarders and chic urban revelers. If the buildings themselves are not enough to make one stand to attention, it is the artwork inside ACMI and NGV Australia that really confronts and excites and in many ways, helps to reinforce Melbourne as the Arts capital of Australia.

With every piece of artwork and imagery housed in these most appropriate of exhibition spaces, one witnesses a cornucopia of Australian artists creating worlds that did not exist before them.

These artists use an aesthetic language of colour, form and line to push the boundaries of what we consider to be art and challenge us to widen our perspectives on life.