The Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre (originally known as the Swimming and Diving Stadium and now known commercially as the AIA Vitality Centre) is a sports administration and training facility located in the

Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct The Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct is a series of sports stadiums and venues, located in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, in Australia. The precinct is situated around 3 km east of the Melbourne central business distr ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The facility opened in 1956 as an aquatic centre for the

1956 Olympic Games 1956 Olympics refers to both: *The 1956 Winter Olympics, which were held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy *The 1956 Summer Olympics The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XVI Olympiad and officially branded as Melbourne 1956, were ...

. In 1983, the Olympic-sized pool was replaced with a parquetry floor and the facility became Melbourne's home of numerous basketball events until 1998, most notably as the home venue for several National Basketball League teams including the

North Melbourne Giants The North Melbourne Giants, previously known as the Coburg Giants, were an Australian professional basketball team based in Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital ...

and

Melbourne Tigers Melbourne United is an Australian professional basketball team based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. United compete in the National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at Joh ...

. The venue served as Melbourne's primary indoor concert arena from 1984 to 1988, until completion of the

Rod Laver Arena Rod Laver Arena is a multipurpose arena located within Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The arena is the main venue for the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis tournament of ...

. The centre is the administrative and training headquarters of the

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. ...

, who also train on the adjacent

Olympic Park Oval Olympic Park Oval is an Australian rules football ground located on the site of the former Olympic Park Stadium (Melbourne), Olympic Park Stadium in Olympic Park Stadium (Melbourne), Olympic Park, Melbourne. The Oval is primarily utilised as t ...

History

1956 Olympic Games

Known originally as the Swimming and Diving Stadium, it was built as an indoor aquatic centre for

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

water polo Water polo is a competitive sport, competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the water polo ball, ball into the oppo ...

, and the swimming part of the

modern pentathlon The modern pentathlon is an Summer Olympics, Olympic multisport that consists of five events: fencing (one-touch épée followed by direct elimination), freestyle swimming, obstacle course racing, Laser pistol (sport), laser pistol shooting, and ...

events for the

1956 Summer Olympics The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XVI Olympiad and officially branded as Melbourne 1956, were an international multi-sport event held in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, from 22 November to 8 December ...

. It was the first fully indoor Olympic swimming venue in an

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

and is the only major

stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

structure from the 1956 Olympic Games with the facade intact. It is listed on the

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...

. The design of this building was the winner of one of three international competitions held in 1952 to provide stadia for the 1956 Olympic Games. Architects

Kevin Borland Kevin Borland (28 October 1926 – 2000) was an Australian post-war Architect. Over his career his works evolved from an International Modernist stance into a Regionalist aesthetic for which he became most recognized. Many of his significant w ...

, Peter McIntyre,

John and Phyllis Murphy John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...

and their engineer Bill Irwin won the only one of these competitions to be consummated. Construction by McDougall & Ireland, one of Melbourne's then-largest construction companies, began in October 1954 and was completed in 1956, just prior to the commencement of the Melbourne Olympic Games. Artist

Arthur Boyd Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the middle to late 20th century. Boyd's work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, ...

created ''Totem Pole'', the ceramic pylon sculptural work outside the complex, at his AMB Pottery in

Murrumbeena Murrumbeena ( ) is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 13 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government area. Murrumbeena recorded a population of 9,996 at the 2021 ce ...

Basketball

After redevelopment in the 1980s, the venue became the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre. It hosted home games for the National Basketball League's

, as well as the

Eastside Spectres Nunawading Spectres is a NBL1 South club based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria. The club fields a team in both the Men's and Women's NBL1 South. The club is a division of Melbourne East Basketball Association (MEBA), the major administr ...

and Westside Melbourne Saints, as well as hosting international games between the

Australian Boomers The Australia men's national basketball team, nicknamed the Boomers after the slang term for a male kangaroo, represents Australia in international basketball competition. Since the late 1980s, Australia has placed among the world elite teams, ...

and various visiting international teams including the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

who played there in 1987. The Giants remained at The Glass House until their final season in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

. The Tigers moved to the 15,400 capacity (for basketball) National Tennis Centre at Flinders Park in

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, From 1984 until 1986, The Glass house with its 7,200 capacity was the largest venue used in the NBL. Its position was taken when the

Brisbane Bullets The Brisbane Bullets are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL) based in Brisbane, Queensland. They competed from 1979 to 2008, and returned to the league in 2016. Brisbane were one of ten NBL ...

moved into the 13,500 seat

Brisbane Entertainment Centre The Brisbane Entertainment Centre is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in the City of Brisbane, central part of Brisbane, Australia. The centre is managed by SMG (property management), ASM Global. The centre also houses a sporting complex a ...

in mid-1986. By the time of the venue's last NBL game on Friday 5 June 1998 which saw the Giants defeat the

Perth Wildcats The Perth Wildcats are an Australian professional basketball team based in Perth, Western Australia. The Wildcats compete in the National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at Perth Arena, ...

109–103, The Glass House was still the 4th largest venue in use, though having opened in 1956 it was also the oldest. The North Melbourne Giants won the NBL Championship at The Glass House in

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

when they defeated the

Canberra Cannons The Canberra Cannons are a defunct professional men's basketball team that competed in Australia's National Basketball League (NBL). They went into financial administration in 2003 and were relocated to Newcastle, where they became the Hunter ...

2–0 in the Grand Final series, reversing the result of the

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

NBL Grand Final The NBL Championship is the annual championship series of the National Basketball League (NBL). The entrants are determined by the victors of the two Semifinals series, who engage in a best-of-five game series to determine the league champion. ...

when they had lost to the Cannons. They won their second and last title in

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

when they defeated the

Adelaide 36ers The Adelaide 36ers are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL). The 36ers are the only team in the league representing the state of South Australia and are based in the state's capital of Adela ...

, again 2–0 in the best of three series. The Glass House also hosted the NBL All-Star Game in 1988, 1989 and 1991.

Collingwood Football Club

moved its administrative and training facilities from Victoria Park to the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre in 2004. The Collingwood Football Club also used Olympic Park Stadium being adjacent to the centre as its outdoor training facility from 2004 until 2012, when it was demolished. After this occurred, Collingwood Football Club moved its outdoor training ground to the newly developed

that replaced the space of the stadium after demolition.

Sponsorship and naming rights arrangements

The luxury vehicle manufacturer

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota, Toyota Motor Corporation. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked amon ...

bought the

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

to the venue in 2004; as the Lexus Centre, it no longer served as a public stadium, instead being used by the

Victorian Institute of Sport The Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) is the government-funded sporting institute of the Australian state of Victoria. It provides high performance sports programs for talented athletes, enabling them to achieve national and international succ ...

and the

as a sports administration and training facility. The Lexus Centre was listed as part of the

. On 21 November 2009, Collingwood Football Club announced publicly on the official AFL website that Lexus would no longer continue to maintain the rights of naming the centre. Lexus announced in a statement that "the branding exercise had achieved its marketing objectives and was no longer a priority in its marketing strategy", hence ending a six-year naming rights deal between Lexus and Collingwood. In March, 2010, Collingwood announced that

Westpac Westpac Banking Corporation, also known as Westpac, is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney. Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it acquired the Commerc ...

bank was the new naming rights sponsor of the centre. On 19 August 2015,

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...

signed a multimillion-dollar three-year deal to become a Premier Partner of Collingwood and holder of the naming rights to the club's headquarters at Olympic Park, now known as the Holden Centre. In March 2022, American International Assurance Company (Australia) (known as AIA) was announced as the new naming rights partner. The centre was thus renamed the AIA Centre.

Awards and recognition

The Swimming and Diving Stadium received an Engineering Heritage International Marker from

Engineers Australia Engineers Australia (EA), known formally as the Institution of Engineers, Australia, is an Australian professional body and Non-profit organization, not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to advance the science and practice of engineerin ...

as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program. In 2021 the Australian Institute of Architects gave the design its National Enduring Architecture Award.

References

External links

Westpac Centre, Venues.com.auVictorian Institute of SportCollingwood Football Club
* {{NBL Arenas, state=collapsed Sports venues completed in 1956 Venues of the 1956 Summer Olympics Sports venues in Melbourne Defunct National Basketball League (Australia) venues Basketball venues in Australia Netball venues in Victoria (state) Heritage-listed buildings in Melbourne Swimming venues in Victoria Collingwood Football Club Lexus Olympic diving venues Olympic modern pentathlon venues Olympic swimming venues Olympic water polo venues Modernist architecture in Australia North Melbourne Giants Melbourne United Recipients of Engineers Australia engineering heritage markers Buildings and structures in the City of Melbourne (LGA) Swimming at the 1956 Summer Olympics Diving at the 1956 Summer Olympics Water polo at the 1956 Summer Olympics Water polo venues in Australia