Sneak Peeks
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 17, 2008
Sydney's private parts go no show, reports Ellie Harvey.
THEY are the places you can't visit. From the dark and dirty to the extravagant, they are the Sydney venues usually prohibited from public viewing. But on Sunday week, their doors unlock."People can't normally go into these buildings," says project manager Gillian Redman-Lloyd. "They're open to a few people who use the buildings every day perhaps but not to the general public." Sydney Open 08 is an architectural walking tour. It has two tiers: a city pass gets you into any of 50 sites to explore at your own pace; and focus tours in which you pick a venue for a specialised guided tour."[The focus tours are] the more private spaces, more fragile spaces or more dangerous spaces," Redman-Lloyd says. They include award-winning contemporary homes, where the architect and owner (often the same person) are on hand to talk to people; the Central Station Ghost Platform Tour; and the steep, spiral, 111-step staircase to the top of St Mary's Bell Tower in the city. "They're one-off experiences," she says.Redman-Lloyd says the idea is "to put the spotlight on places of significance, to educate people and to make people aware of what's going on around them so that they create a dialogue between people who live here, developers, builders and architects. It highlights places we are concerned about, that we admire and that we want to conserve."Redman-Lloyd looks for architectural significance when selecting the venues. "A lot of places have got a beautiful facade but you go inside and it's completely butchered."When the tour began in 1997, it was so popular and well received that the Historic Houses Trust decided to run it again the following year. It now runs biennially. "It's grown every year and we have an audience anticipating this event, ringing up and saying, 'When's the next one?"' Some venues on the focus tour are already sold out. "We've got a lot of young architects who are taking an interest in this now, a lot of young designers as well as people who are interested in the history of their city and people who are just wanting a stickybeak," Redman-Lloyd says."There's always those, but they learn more than they expect to."SYDNEY OPEN 08 November 2, 9.30am-5pm, 8239 2211, www.hht.net.au/sydneyopen. City pass $30/$25, focus tours $20. (A city pass is required to buy a focus tour.)
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald