Architecture & design
On This Day
20 Dec 1926 - Sydney underground railway opened
On 20 December 1926 the first section of underground railway in Sydney began operating
On This Day
27 Nov 1889 - Sydney Town Hall opened
On 27 November 1889 the Sydney Town Hall was officially opened. The Town Hall was built on Gadigal land, throughout the 1880s, on the site of an old cemetery using local Sydney sandstone
A global design story
Their original owner and use remain a mystery, but these striking tiles hold an intriguing connection to a significant international design story
A new way of living
Once word spread about the newly built Rose Seidler House in 1950, it was the ‘most talked about house in Sydney’. Seventy years on, it's impossible to deny the strength and daring of Seidler's vision
Museum stories
A rum deal
When Lachlan Macquarie began his term as governor of NSW in 1810, Sydney was in desperate need of a new hospital
A straight edge and a semicircle
Architect Harry Seidler & artist Frank Stella collaborated on just one project - Grosvenor Place. But the influence of Stella’s work is evident in the geometric plans of many towers & civic centres designed by Seidler
A taste for the ornate
Traces of long-lost decorative features at Elizabeth Farm provide insights into changing fashions in 19th‑century architecture and design
An environment for living: Rose Seidler House
From the curtains to the coffee table and the cutlery, every object and fitting in the house Harry Seidler designed for his parents was of a functional and flexible design that reflected the modern lifestyle
Architectural remnants from The Vineyard - Subiaco
The Vineyard at Rydalmere NSW (later known as Subiaco), designed by architect John Verge for Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur and completed in 1836, is almost universally described by architectural historians as one of Sydney’s finest colonial homes