Look where you’re going: Melbourne design stories with Dale Campisi

'Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne' (Lady Janet Clarke rotunda), ca. 1900–1920, photographer unknown. Courtesy the State Library of Victoria.

You can read the past in the city—if you know where to look. This Saturday or Sunday (or both), make sure you charge your camera, fill a water bottle and pack your curiosity: storyteller Dale Campisi (author of travel and city guides Melbourne Precincts and Melbourne Villages, and season local-knowledge tour guide) will lead the way between Sean Godsell’s fully automated, blossoming 2014 MPavilion, now located at the Hellenic Museum, and AL_A’s 2015 MPavilion in the Queen Victoria Gardens. Along the route through the CBD, we’ll explore the characters and events that inform Melbourne’s history, and discover the patina of its built environment, old and new. Comfy shoes essential.

Tours begin at the Hellenic Museum at 4pm on both days, and will take approximately two hours. Plan an early arrival: a pre-tour roam through the museum—the site of which itself has a rich history of hosting public cricket matches and bazaars before being earmarked as Melbourne’s branch of the British Royal Mint—is highly encouraged.