Did you know that we have a collection of hotel plans for the Sydney area? Many of these beautiful plans have been digitised.

Architecture & design stories

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A hall is crowded with people sitting in rows down the centre of the floor and in balconies at either side
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

Hand painted title showing the middle section of reclining figure in landscape

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

Deck and Harry Seidler mural at Rose Seidler House.

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

Pictorial guide to identifying Australian architecture collection : style chart and photographs used as illustrations for 'Pictorial guide...' by Richard Apperly, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds, first published by Angus & Robertson, Sydney, in 1989

A pictorial guide to identifying Australian architecture – photo collection

This collection of over 700 black and white photo prints was used to illustrate the book 'A pictorial guide to identifying Australian architecture' by Richard Apperly, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds, first published in Sydney in 1989