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Greenhouses to visit in Australia

The Verrière atlas lists 20 greenhouses in Australia, built between 1877 and 2022.

Australia sums up a century and a half of greenhouse history: Adelaide's Palm House (1877), a prefabricated German glasshouse shipped from Bremen in 1875, Bendigo's cast-iron conservatory (1897), then a run of 1930s conservatories from Melbourne to Bathurst, several of them devoted to begonias. The 1970s brought Brisbane's tropical dome and a glass pyramid in Sydney, demolished in 2015 and replaced by The Calyx, opened in 2016. In 1989 Adelaide added the Bicentennial Conservatory, described as the largest single-span glasshouse in the southern hemisphere.

20Greenhouses
1877Oldest — Palm House
2022Newest — North Coast Regional Botanic Garden Glasshouse
18Cities
See them on the globe →

All 20 greenhouses, oldest to newest

Palm House, Adelaide Botanic Garden, Adelaide
1877

Palm House

🇦🇺 Adelaide Botanic Garden, Adelaide
Prefabricated German Victorian greenhouse from Bremen.
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Rosalind Park Conservatory, Bendigo, Victoria
1897

Rosalind Park Conservatory

🇦🇺 Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo's first prefabricated building, this 1897 cast-iron conservatory is the only nineteenth-century conservatory left standing in a public park in Victoria.
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1927

Central Park Conservatory

🇦🇺 Malvern East, Melbourne, Victoria
One of only three comparable public conservatories in Victoria, built in 1927 and on the state heritage register.
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Fitzroy Gardens Conservatory, Melbourne, Victoria
1930

Fitzroy Gardens Conservatory

🇦🇺 Melbourne, Victoria
A Spanish Mission-style display house, opened in 1930, where the floral displays change five times a year.
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John Hart Conservatory, City Park, Launceston, Tasmania
1932–1933

John Hart Conservatory

🇦🇺 City Park, Launceston, Tasmania
A municipal conservatory funded by a bequest, called a 'miniature Crystal Palace' by an alderman in 1932, restored in 2025.
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Blowes Conservatory (Cook Park), Orange, New South Wales
1934

Blowes Conservatory (Cook Park)

🇦🇺 Orange, New South Wales
Donated in 1934 by Mayor Alfred William Blowes, it grows tuberous begonias, the first of them a gift from the City of Ballarat.
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Begonia House, Machattie Park, Machattie Park, Bathurst, New South Wales
1936

Begonia House, Machattie Park

🇦🇺 Machattie Park, Bathurst, New South Wales
Every year from February to April, some 300 tuberous begonias rise in tiers along the L-shaped stands of this 1936 glasshouse.
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The Conservatory, Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart, Tasmania
1939

The Conservatory, Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

🇦🇺 Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart, Tasmania
Its walls reuse sandstone from Hobart's old hospital, demolished in 1939, and its doors were salvaged from a city jeweller's shop.
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1960 · 2019

Conservatory, Geelong Botanic Gardens

🇦🇺 Geelong Botanic Gardens, Geelong, Victoria
In a botanic garden of 1851, a glazed conservatory where heliconias and banana plants grow; the AL Walter Conservatory reopened there in 2019.
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1968–1970

Sir Joseph Banks Glasshouse, Wollongong Botanic Garden

🇦🇺 Keiraville, Wollongong, New South Wales
Opened in 1970 for the bicentenary of Cook's landing, it houses a Haworthia collection of more than 1,000 plants.
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Pyramid Glasshouse (Tropical Centre), Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, New South Wales
1970–1971

Pyramid Glasshouse (Tropical Centre)

🇦🇺 Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, New South Wales
Described as the first glasshouse of its kind, this glass pyramid held a spiral staircase rising through tropical planting.
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Tropical Display Dome, Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, Brisbane, Queensland
1977

Tropical Display Dome

🇦🇺 Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, Brisbane, Queensland
A 28-metre dome opened in 1977, where aroids, heliconias and palms grow alongside cocoa and African nutmeg.
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1985

Butterfly House

🇦🇺 Melbourne Zoo, Parkville
At Melbourne Zoo, a free-flight butterfly house opened on December 11, 1985.
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1988

Alf Headland Conservatory, Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens

🇦🇺 Daylesford, Victoria
It honours the caretaker who, from 1956, revived the gardens' begonias from two tubers found in the wood shed.
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Bicentennial Conservatory, Adelaide Botanic Garden
1989

Bicentennial Conservatory

🇦🇺 Adelaide Botanic Garden
The largest single-span glasshouse in the entire Southern Hemisphere.
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1990

St Kilda Botanical Gardens Conservatory

🇦🇺 St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria
A 392 m² glass conservatory of Australian rainforest plants, added to the St Kilda Botanical Gardens in the early 1990s.
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Amazon Waterlily Pavilion, Adelaide Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia
2007

Amazon Waterlily Pavilion

🇦🇺 Adelaide Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia
Load-bearing columns and beams of laminated glass: a 2007 pavilion built around the heritage pond of the 1867 Victoria House.
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The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, New South Wales
2016

The Calyx

🇦🇺 Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, New South Wales
A white colonnade completes the curve of a 1980s glasshouse into a circle, framing the garden like a camera.
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North Coast Regional Botanic Garden Glasshouse, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
2022

North Coast Regional Botanic Garden Glasshouse

🇦🇺 Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
A tropical house warmed mainly by the sun through large north-facing windows, sheltering plants from Indonesia and Malaysia.
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Robert Clark Conservatory, Ballarat Botanical Gardens, Ballarat, Victoria

Robert Clark Conservatory

🇦🇺 Ballarat Botanical Gardens, Ballarat, Victoria
Every autumn this conservatory shows the city's begonia collection, the centrepiece of a festival held since 1953.
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Architecture in Australia

Southern Cross railway station, Melbourne
2006

Southern Cross railway station

🇦🇺 Melbourne
A rippling, dune-shaped roof spreads over a whole city block above the platforms, and louvres set into the peak of each vault let exhaust fumes escape through natural ventilation.
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MPavilion 10, Melbourne, Victoria
2023

MPavilion 10

🇦🇺 Melbourne, Victoria
Ando's only built work in the Southern Hemisphere: an aluminium disc on a concrete column, enclosing walls and a pool in a Melbourne park, a pavilion planned for one season and in the end kept.
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Neville Bonner Bridge, Brisbane
2024

Neville Bonner Bridge

🇦🇺 Brisbane
A 320 m cable-stayed footbridge under a continuous canopy of shade, crossing the Brisbane River between South Bank and the Queen's Wharf precinct.
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Nearby countries in the atlas

New Zealand