Rialto Towers

The Rialto Towers (often The Rialto) is a skyscraper located at 525 Collins Street, in the western side of the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is the second-tallest reinforced concrete building and the tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere, when measured to its roof (several other skyscrapers in Australia are taller if their spires are included, as are some other structures in Australia such as communications masts and observation towers).

The Rialto Towers featured Melbourne's first skyscraper public observation deck which operated between 1994 and 31 December 2009. It was also the location of Melbourne's first Tower running event.

Background

The site of the Rialto Towers (Flinders Lane, Collins Street, Winfield Square and Robbs Lane) was occupied by several buildings including Robb's Buildings (now demolished), a grand classical styled 5 storey Victorian office building designed by Thomas Watts and Sons (and reputedly the tallest in the Melbourne City Centre in 1885), a 1920s building of the same size, the Rialto Building (1889) designed by William Pitt and the Winfield Building (1890) designed by Charles DEbro & Richard Speight all formed a uniform height limited streetscape along Collins Street and around the corner of King Street.

Rialto

The Rialto is and has been for many centuries the financial and commercial centre of Venice. It is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, Italy, also known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal.

The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands on either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus, or "high bank". Eventually the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district the Rialto, referring only to the area on the left bank.

The Rialto became an important district in 1097, when Venice's market moved there, and in the following century a boat bridge was set up across the Grand Canal providing access to it. This was soon replaced by the Rialto Bridge. The bridge has since then become iconic, appearing for example in the seal of Rialto, California ("The Bridge City").

The market grew, both as a retail and as a wholesale market. Warehouses were built, including the famous Fondaco dei Tedeschi on the other side of the bridge. Meanwhile, shops selling luxury goods, banks and insurance agencies appeared and the city's tax offices were located in the area. The city's abattoir was also in the Rialto.

Rialto (programming)

Rialto is an open source javascript library for using in browsers. The name is created after a Rich Internet AppLication Toolkit. The library provides user interface widgets, has drag and drop capabilities, Ajax communication. Recently a support for GWT was introduced. There is also additional official support for these server side frameworks: jsp, jsf, php, python, .net. A visual user interface builder is available too. Rialto is distributed under an Apache license.

See also

External links

Rialto, Dublin

Rialto is a suburb of Dublin's southside. It is located along the abandoned section from the Grand Canal to James Street Basin which was built to serve the Guinness Brewery. This section of the canal was the original (not the extension), but closed down in 1976.

Dublin's Rialto has also its own Rialto Bridge which spans the abandoned portion of the Grand Canal. This abandoned portion of the canal is now used for the Luas Red Line from Connolly Station to Tallaght. Near the Rialto Bridge is Luas stop 'Rialto' which serves this community.

Famous residents

Landmarks

Former Rialto Cinema

The Bird Flanagan

Rialto Parish Church

See also

Coordinates: 53°20′09″N 6°17′53″W / 53.335845°N 6.298127°W / 53.335845; -6.298127