Remember when teenagers invented the generation gap? The Old Treasury Building's new Swinging Sixties exhibition explores Melbourne's turbulent decade.
Picture this: it’s 1965, you’re seventeen, rocking a paisley shirt and your parents think you’ve lost the plot.
Welcome to Melbourne in the sixties, when baby boomers were busy inventing youth culture as we knew it. The Old Treasury Building (the best place to discover a uniquely Melbourne bent on history) is diving headfirst into this era of rebellion and revolution with Swinging Sixties, a fascinating deep dive into Victoria during one of history’s most transformative decades.
Swinging Sixties
- Opens 20 October 2025
- Old Treasury Building, 20 Spring Street, Melbourne
- Open Sunday to Friday (closed Saturdays)
- Free entry
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A young generation with money to burn
The exhibition unpacks how young Melburnians suddenly found themselves with money to burn and attitudes to match. By 1971, nearly 40 per cent of Melbourne’s population was under 21 – and they weren’t interested in following their parents’ playbook.
From protest records to Seeker Judith Durham’s original costume, the collection captures a time when everything from fashion to family planning was up for grabs. Prue Acton’s designs sit alongside contraceptive devices (yes, the Pill makes an appearance), while a special section celebrates Barbie’s enduring influence with authentic 1960s dolls and accessories.
Beyond the obvious sex, drugs and rock and roll narrative, the exhibition examines the real social shifts that defined the era. This was when Melbourne’s youth culture truly exploded – from the sharp-dressed sharpies prowling the suburbs to the mod kids hitting dance halls in their finest threads. The exhibition explores how full employment and rising wages created the world’s first true teenage consumer class, complete with their own magazines, fashions and music scenes.
What makes this particularly fascinating is how Melbourne’s sixties differed from the global narrative. While London had Carnaby Street and San Francisco had Haight-Ashbury, Melbourne developed its own distinctive youth subcultures. The exhibition doesn’t shy away from the contradictions either – this was simultaneously an era of unprecedented freedom and conservative backlash, of psychedelic experimentation and suburban conformity.
A museum designed by a teenager
The Old Treasury Building, that grand 19th-century beauty at the top of Collins Street, provides the perfect backdrop for this journey through time. Designed by teenage architect JJ Clark (who was just 19 when he created this masterpiece), the building has witnessed Melbourne’s evolution from gold rush town to cultural powerhouse.
Now it’s hosting a celebration of the decade that changed everything – when miniskirts scandalised the establishment, rock and roll ruled the airwaves, and young people discovered they could actually challenge authority and win.
Visitors can expect to see original protest ephemera that captures the political awakening of a generation, alongside the fashion statements that made parents clutch their pearls. The inclusion of Barbie memorabilia might seem odd at first, but it perfectly illustrates how even children’s toys reflected the changing times – Barbie herself was a sixties creation, embodying the decade’s shifting ideals of femininity and independence.
The Old Treasury Building continues its tradition of making history accessible with this free exhibition. The venue itself adds another layer to the experience – those gold vaults that once stored Victoria’s wealth now house stories of a different kind of richness: the cultural explosion that shaped modern Melbourne.
