The Athenaeum is a restrained boom-style neoclassical three-storey building designed by architects Smith and Johnson with stuccoed facade with pilasters, label moulds, and bracketed cornice.

[1] It was completed in 1886 on the site of the original building of 1842, and is surmounted with a parapet with a niche housing a statue by Richard Kretzschmar[2] of Minerva (Athena, hence 'Athenaeum'),[3] goddess of reason, wisdom, arts and literature.

The first President was Captain William Lonsdale, the first Patron was the Superintendent of Port Phillip, Charles La Trobe and the first books were donated by Vice-President Henry Fyshe Gisborne.

The statue of Minerva, which was modelled by Richard Kretzschmar on that at the Vatican, was funded through Alderman Thomas Moubray's gift of 100 guineas.

Renamed the Athenaeum Theatre,[12] it was one of the first venues in Australia to screen talking pictures, presenting The Jazz Singer in February 1929.

Artist Jo Sweatman recalled that it was Frederick McCubbin's wife Annie who first proposed the Athenaeum as a possible art gallery.

[4] In 1910 Walter Withers, Bernard Hall, Frederick McCubbin and John Mather approached Athenaeum secretary Reginald W.E.

Consequently the upper hall, previously used as a small museum, was installed with a lantern on the roof by architects Sydney Smith and Ogg, in order to light the art gallery.

It showed paintings by Rupert Bunny, Hans Heysen, Albert Namatjira, Tom Roberts, John Rowell, Ernest Buckmaster, Constance Stokes and Arthur Streeton, before closing in 1971.

[7][13] The gallery also hosted talks by the Melbourne Society of Women Painters, including one in 1935 at which Mary Cecil Allen spoke.