Federation Square (also colloquially contracted to Fed Square) is a civic centre and cultural precinct in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is a mixed-use development covering an area of 3.2 hectare and centred around two major public spaces, open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium) built on top of a concrete deck over busy railway lines and was opened in 2002. It is Victoria’s second most popular tourist attraction, attracting 8.41 million visitors in 2009. Its design has caused much controversy since its first planning and continued to divide opinion after its opening. Despite this, the precinct continues to expand. Unlike many Australian landmarks, it was not opened by the Queen, nor was she invited to its unveiling.

Melbourne's first public square, an initiative of the Melbourne City Council was the City Square which dates back to 1968 was considered by many to be a planning failure. Its redevelopment in the 1990s failed to address serious flaws in its design as a public space and it was during this decade that the first plans for a new square were hatched by the Victorian state government.

An architectural design competition was announced by premier Jeff Kennett in 1997 that received 177 entries from around the world. The design brief was to better connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River and to enhance and complement the neighbouring heritage buildings including St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street Station. Several shortlisted designs, which included entries from high profile architects Denton Corker Marshall and Ashton Raggatt McDougall, were displayed to the public. The winner, however, announced in 1997. was a consortium of Lab Architecture Studio directed by Donald Bates and Peter Davidson from London and local architects Bates Smart. The original design which was costed at between A$110 and $128 million included several five-storey "shards", two of which were free-standing on the north-western edge of the precinct. These two structures were intended to provide a framed view of St Paul's Cathedral from the St Paul's Court part of the new plaza, accentuating its size in a similar perspective inspired by the piazza of St. Peter's Basilica. A series of interconnected laneways and stairways would connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River with the open square featuring a large viewing screen for public events. These elements were widely supported by the design community and promoted as fulfilling the design criteria whilst also embracing the growing popularity of Melbourne's laneways. However Lab's design was also source of great controversy causing outrage among heritage advocates, primarily due to the positioning of one of the shards. SBS were announced as an anchor tenant of the office space component of Federation Square. While office space was always intended as a way to fund some of the construction of the square, it was intended that tenants be public or cultural organisations in line with the philosophy of the public space. ACMI and the National Gallery were announced as other major tenants.

After a change of government during its construction, and the incoming Labor administration ordered a significant design revision to appease conservative critics. A later report drawn up by the University of Melbourne's Professor Evan Walker postulated that the westernmost shard would interfere with a so-called "heritage vista", a view of the cathedral from the middle of the tram tracks on Princes Bridge to the south.[5] Budgets on the project blew out significantly and with long delays,[6][7] mainly due to the cost of covering the railyard and modifications to the design and among the cost cutting measures was the replacing areas originally designed for paving with concrete. The final cost of construction was approximately A$467 million (over four times the original estimate) and funding came primarily from the state government with small contributions from the City of Melbourne, federal government, private operators and sponsors.

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