Queen Victoria Building

                                   

I remember when I first arrived to Sydney in the 1980's, this magnicent structure,  the Queen Victoria Building,  was boarded up and at risk of being torn down.  It reopened after a massive restoration nearly thirty years ago.  It is a jewel of our city and I love it!

                                    

Woollahra Post Office

          

Alas, this gorgeous post office in Woollahra is no longer a post office.  Woollahra, itself, a inner city suburb is a delightful place with very desirable home and lots of fancy shops, galleries and eateries.  I can't find much history about this building but I suggest it was built in the early part of the 20th century.  It was decommissioned as a post office five years ago and now is a shop. The sun hitting those brick walls made it very warm in colour.

George St , The Rocks

     

The weather isn't good today, wet, cold and windy but that didn't stop some friends and I sketching at The Rocks in Sydney.  This historic part of Sydney was nearly pulled down for redevelopment in the 1970's. Luckily the unions stopped the tear down from going ahead. 

The building in the middle is the old police station which is now a restaurant. 

Art on the Walk

        

I was involved in an art competition last week at a plaza adjacent to Central Railway.  The plaza management invited people to create an artwork.  They provided the paper which was very large, 1.5 metres by 1.25 metres.  There weren't any restrictions on what you could create.  Part of the brief was we had to be present in the plaza for at least twenty hours that week. I had three days off work and the the days on site were quite long.

The inspiration for my work was the scene around us at the plaza.  I played with perspective and had a fish eye view.  The people were drawn from people actually there.  I also used collage of maps of the area and rail network

I was lucky enough to win the second prize and here I am with the judge, Suzanne Smith.  I am thrilled!

                              

This is day two of the project. Luckily the weather was pretty good.

It was a fun experience and to win second prize was the icing on the cake!

The Yellow House

                                 

This is The Yellow House,  57-59 Macleay St, Potts Point. The artist, Martin Sharp established an artist collective here in 1970. He modelled it on Vincent Van Gogh's yellow house in Arles and his dream of establishing an artist community there.

Every wall, ceiling and floor in the Yellow House became it's gallery and performance space. The rooms were inspired by Pop art, Surrealism, Dada and conceptualism.  Besides the drawing, painting and sculpture there were puppet shows, lights shows, plays and film screenings.

Today there is a gallery, restaurants  and apartments upstairs. Peter Godwin is currently exhibiting here.

The Sirius Building

                                     

The Sirius Building is in The Rocks, Sydney, overlooking the Harbour, Circular Quay and Opera House. What a location!  It is low income public housing designed by Tao Gofers in 1978/79.  This style of architecture is called brutalist .

The building is spread along a ridge on the harbour side of the harbour bridge, the height varies from three stories up to a tower of ten stories.  The apartments themselves vary from two to four bedroom and have balconies, roof gardens and community rooms for get togethers.  The architect thought a lot about a positive living environment. 

                                  

Nearly everyone has vacated this building as the Goverment wants to sell it, to be demolished and private development to replace it.  I hope this doesn't happen, it's a wonderful place and well worth saving.