A multimedia walking tour celebrating the development of Melbourne’s Yarra River precinct since the 1980s will be launched by the Premier of Victoria at lunchtime today. Transforming the Yarra traces the story of the visionary work of architects, urban designers, planners and politicians in revitalising the Yarra River as a hub for recreation and culture.

Architect Evan Walker became the state’s planning and environment minister in 1982. Another architect, David Yencken, was made head of the planning department. Together, they earned high regard as the visionary planners of the blueprint to realise the Yarra River waterfront’s potential.

Encouraging Melbourne’s confidence about the possibilities for urban change, Denton Corker Marshall’s innovative ideas for public spaces, plazas and promenades were a significant contribution to this vision.

Undertaking a comprehensive urban design study for Walker and Yencken, the firm’s proposal to reinforce the Yarra as the prime edge and focus of the CBD constituted a definitive design statement for the riverbank. Denton Corker Marshall’s plan to formalise the river’s edge with a bluestone embankment influenced the river’s north bank being similarly ‘sharpened’, ahead of their own award-winning Southbank Promenade in 1988.

Further west, the Northbank Turning Basin project (1995) transformed a neglected hostile environment dominated by railway viaducts, roads and car parks into a dramatic public space for Melbourne. Denton Corker Marshall worked with Arup and the Melbourne City Council to implement the design.

And in 1996 Australia’s largest exhibition centre opened. With its entrance marked by a dramatic steel blade-like canopy, the 450m long Melbourne Exhibition Centre is one of Denton Corker Marshall’s most recognised buildings.

Director Ian White was a key member of the project's design team. Ian speaks about the building in chapter 5 of the 25-minute Transforming the Yarra tour, which starts at Princes Bridge and traverses from Federation Square to Southbank Promenade across Sandridge Bridge and down to South Wharf.

Transforming the Yarra is being launched by Premier John Brumby at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre on Tuesday 13 July. Commissioned by Major Projects Victoria, the multimedia tour was developed for the State of Design Festival. The tour is available as an iPhone app, and can be downloaded free from the iTunes store.

Visit: State of Design: Transforming the Yarra

Denton Corker Marshall is one of the world’s leading design practices. From Melbourne where it began in 1972, the firm has grown internationally and is currently working in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Australia.

Denton Corker Marshall has been involved in architecture and urban design projects along the Yarra River since 1985 when it undertook the Princes Plaza urban design study for the site now occupied by Federation Square. The study demonstrated the potential to cover the railyards and create a vital link between the CBD and the river, parkland and ceremonial /arts precincts to the south. Other projects include: Melbourne Maritime Museum and Park (urban design considerations); Charles Grimes Bridge and Dudley Street Underpass (concept design 1999); and, Webb Bridge. Completed in 2003 (in collaboration with artist Robert Owen), the multi-awarded Webb Bridge has become a symbol of the Docklands precinct and Melbourne itself.

Taken as a continuum, Denton Corker Marshall’s work shows the seeds and development of a qualitative change that has seen the river axis emerge as one of the most important contemporary parts of the city of Melbourne.