Gehry: Thinking outside the square

This building, named after its main sponsor, was opened in the Haymarket area of Sydney, this week. It is the new home for the School of Business at the University of Technology (UTS). I find it quite splendid, indeed, any photographer would. The architect Frank Gehry, born in Canada but resident in Los Angeles, is now 85, and was present for the opening. Today, the queues for guided tours were a couple of hundred people long, the sun hot, and benches non existent. I feel the building could do with a greensward abutting its entrance. Not going to happen, I fear.

Hob-nobbing at The Angel

Although The Angel Hotel, on the corner of Pitt Street and Angel Place, was constructed in 1888, it has been rebuilt more times than Joan Rivers. It started off as 3-floors, and is now 5. Nowadays, it is just another chain in the mail of the Merrivale armour, like a whole bunch of trendy-twee pubs across Sydney.

Verandahs were for hitchin'

The verandah outside the 1886 Soul Pattinson Chemist

Pitt Street Mall is now a pedestrian plaza. I will chance my arm and declare it the retail heart of Sydney. Once upon a time, the streets of Sydney were littered with shop-front verandahs. They were probably a harking back to "the old country", but I prefer to think of them as a protection from the heat, or even a hitching post for the horse'n'buggy.

This is the facade for Eway & Co, a drapery department store established in 1891 and taken over by Farmers in 1955. The verandah is faux.

Showing the detail in the Soul Pattinson wrought iron.

The "Pitt Street Mall" in 1878. First the east side, then the west side.

Nowadays, there appears to be a harking back to the mid-19th-century, with the return of shop-front verandahs (faux, invariably). It is more easily accommodated in a pedestrian mall, than on a busy footpath beside a major street, like Pitt Street. I quite like the mental image they conjure up, of continuity. Make sure you enlarge the two historic images which I found on State Records Archives Investigator.

The detail of The Strand Arcade wrought iron.

Water, water every where, nor any drop to drink

One of the reasons Sydney is sited where it is, is because the scouting party in January 1788, spotted a stream of fresh water trickling into a wide, deep cove. The stream became known as The Tank Stream, and is now totally underground. The cove was named Sydney Cove. Where the Tank Stream meets Sydney Cove is Circular Quay.

This metal plaque is in the Pitt Street Mall. The Tank Stream was not long, perhaps a little over a kilometre, and it was more a trickle than a stream. It raised in a swamp as you can see from the diagram. I have included two views down Pitt Street, ie facing north. The second shows the storm-water drain that flows into the tunnel beneath the surface which is the current day stream. The first one shows a sliver of the harbour bridge right down and beyond the Quay. The Tank Stream provided fresh water for the colony for about 40 years, being replaced by the pipes of Busby's Bore which came all the way from the sandhills of Centennial Park. Very quickly the new settlers became aware of the fragility of water supply in a continent like Australia. And they did themselves no favours, by degrading and polluting the stream with human waste and the waste and carcasses of animals.

10. Theme Day - What would I miss?

If I had to leave Sydney forever, what would I miss? I have canvassed a range of regrets I would have should this occur, until it finally dawned on me that I would miss Sydney over three-dimensions. On a 2-dimensional axis, I would miss the centre of Sydney: from Sydney Cove in the North, to Central Station in the south; from Macquarie Street in the east, to the shore of Darling Harbour in the west. But adding a third dimension is the crucial element for me, and that is time. I would miss my search for understanding the people and places of my city through time, from 1788 through to 2015. And what better place to ponder all this history than on the shores of Sydney Cove, where European settlement commenced. Kicking back with a Stonefish Riesling, and a Roast Pumpkin, Macadamia nut, and goat's cheese salad, watching the myriad of vessels plying their trade under a summer sky.

To see how other City Daily Photo bloggers have interpreted the Theme Day for February, follow this link.