{"id":873270,"date":"2026-08-30T01:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T01:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873270\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T01:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T01:16:17","slug":"adelaides-rundle-mall-celebrates-50th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873270\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide’s Rundle Mall celebrates 50th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifty years ago, then-SA premier Don Dunstan decided to remove cars from a section of Rundle Street to create the country’s first major pedestrian-only shopping mall.<\/p>\n

It was a controversial move at the time to pedestrianise the area.<\/p>\n

“In one corner you’ve got the cars, in the other corner you’ve got the pedestrians, then you’ve got the small traders over there, and the big traders who want it,” said local historian Keith Conlon.<\/p>\n

“There was a lot of friction about whether this ought to happen, which seems strange now.<\/p>\n

“It was almost like we had the [boxing] ring set in the middle of Gawler Place and Rundle Mall to be.”<\/p>\n

Rundle Mall was opened on September 1, 1976 to a crowd of about 10,000 people, complete with a champagne-filled fountain.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Vehicles, pictured in 1928, on Rundle Street, which would become Rundle Mall. (Supplied: History Trust SA)<\/p>\n

Dunstan promised a space that would be for more than just shopping.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t just going to be a shopping place, but where people could come and stroll, meet one another, enjoy an open-air activity, and at the same time, of course, go and purchase what they wanted to,” he told the crowd.<\/p>\n

\"Performers<\/p>\n

About 10,000 gathered for the opening of Adelaide’s Rundle Mall. (Supplied: Rundle Mall)<\/p>\n

Fifty years later, Rundle Mall’s executive manager Andrew White said he was excited to celebrate that approach on its anniversary.<\/p>\n

“It’s not just about coming and doing shopping, it’s also where culture and social life occurs in South Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Andrew White says Rundle Mall is about more than shopping. (ABC News: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n

A ‘pigeon overlord’ and other iconic art<\/p>\n

One of the most well-known elements of Rundle Mall is the public art, with Mr White describing it as “an outdoor art gallery” \u2014 including the iconic Mall’s Balls, installed in 1977.<\/p>\n

“It really now is part of what you automatically think of,” Mr Conlon said.\"The<\/p>\n

The Mall’s Balls are an iconic Adelaide landmark. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

But some of the art has been met with friction over time.<\/p>\n

The original designer of the Mall’s Balls \u2014 officially named Spheres \u2014 was “dismayed” by the decision<\/a> to move them in 2013.<\/p>\n

And the four pigs which call Rundle Mall home \u2014 Horatio, Oliver, Truffles and August \u2014 were met with some questions when they were installed in the 1990s, according to Mr Conlon.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Rundle Mall pigs. (ABC News: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n

“Of course now, they’re Instagram favourites around the world,” he said.<\/p>\n

Most recently a giant pigeon was installed in 2020<\/a>, a piece the artist said was in tribute to the “proud flaneurs, promenading through our leisure and retail precincts”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Pigeon is a newer addition to Rundle Mall. (ABC News: Che Chorley)<\/p>\n

“We had the Mall’s Balls come in, we’ve got the pigeon overlord, which is quite iconic now,” Mr White said.<\/p>\n

“All these things that start off where people are a little bit unsure, they become part of the fabric of this place.”<\/p>\n

Famous faces at the Mall<\/p>\n

Rundle Mall has also seen its share of famous faces.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 1977, not long after it was opened, Queen Elizabeth II visited.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II was among the most notable visitors to Rundle Mall. (Supplied: University of Melbourne Archives)<\/p>\n

A few years later, about 25,000 people descended on the Mall to listen to British pop star sensation Boy George.<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Boy George performed in Rundle Mall in 1984 to a crowd of thousands. (Supplied: State Library of South Australia)<\/p>\n

“We’ve had some of the great Australian artists here [too], but as well as that, it’s where you celebrate things,” Mr Conlon said.<\/p>\n

“You celebrate multicultural festivals, you celebrate when your netball team wins, when the Thunderbirds win the whole mall turns pink.<\/p>\n

\"Hundreds<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Thunderbirds fans flocked to Rundle Mall to celebrate the recent premiership win by Adelaide. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“It’s a place where you come, not just to shop, but to meet and do things.”<\/p>\n

Although much has changed since the 1970s, Mr Conlon said he believed Rundle Mall had kept in step with what was a cutting edge idea 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

“It’s always moving and changing but I think the continuing thread for the mall is that it’s a community hub, a people hub,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The really continuing flavour of the mall for me is the people and what they come to see. So this has always been much more than a shopping mall.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifty years ago, then-SA premier Don Dunstan decided to remove cars from a section of Rundle Street to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66381,3443,64,63,134,441813,5216,98281,406445,7240,441812,1124],"class_list":["post-873270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-50th-anniversary","tag-adelaide","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-mall-balls","tag-retail","tag-rundle-mall","tag-rundle-street","tag-shopping","tag-shopping-precinct","tag-south-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}