Renzo's got a great skyscraper right up the street from the opera house. Look for the convention center at Darling Harbour, that's a pretty nice building too. Take the subway out to Bondi Beach for an afternoon, very cool urban beach with amazing rock formations and cliffs bordering.

To correct sevensixfive you can't get the subway to bondi beach, you have to drive or bus it from bondi junction (which is accessible by train). A good thing to do, instead, is to walk around the coast, which takes about an hour, from coogee beach to bondi, through numerous other urban beaches (at one point you walk past the actor heath ledger's house, but not sure which it is). Bus to Coogee, 370.

The skyline is ideally viewed from the botanic gardens, itself worth a visit, which is accessible from the opera house. You can't miss foster's tall building with footy goals on top (extremely funny really), just near the renzo mentioned above (which is said to 'echo' the sails of the opera house, and is a beautiful tall building, in two parts).

At circular quay check out the current sydney biennale of international contemporary art, at the mca, not for the building (the old marine board) which is awful but for the art, some of which problematises place and place-making for the present time (the 'emotional architecture' video series on the ground floor is esp good). Nearby see the renovated customs house and a model of the city of sydney in the year 2000 on one of the upper floors.

If you're a martini drinker the summit building (1960s) at australia sq is a great example of the 'international style' in australia, with a saarinen-ish interior 47 floors up and rotating 'orbit' cocktail lounge, with good city views.

The queen victoria building (1898) or QVB might be of interest, classic early shopping mall architecture, with natural light descending three or so floors to the basement (near town hall station in city centre).

Newtown, near sydney university, offers interesting retail entertainment, prewar housing, lots of classic terraces, and king street, which is fine for fashion, thai food, lebanese, indian, books, cinema, and cafes. Generally trendy consumerism.

I've said rather obvious things, but there must be lots more, will post if anything comes to mind. It's been good procrastination, hope its useful

yes, get a flight on virgin blue, and head to melbourne where you can see contemporary architecture - something sadly missing in sydney.

sydney has a certain lifestyle, melbourne has architecture.

I basically agree dlb, (it's the general feeling and general perception that gets circulated in Australia, that Melb = contemporary), but I'd love it, if you have the time and inclination, to say what you mean exactly by "contemporary". Is there a style, an architect, a certain building? I'm serious.

Would you let Gehry or a Gehry-alike replace the MCA at circular quay, in its marine board manifestation, with a building that tries to equal the time of the art it touts?

Anyone?

citadel - by contemporary i mean some sense of dealing spatially and materially with current social and cultural realtionships. of enaging in the changing patterns of human existence that are no longer based on family and work structures from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century.

in sydney, considerable effort has been made by those in power - ie chris johnson (former government architect) to keep out of sydney anything that would disrupt the gentele image of the city. that corporate banality would be preferred over possible physical or spatial exuberance. there is little or no exploration of new spatial conditions or any concerted effort to examine the changing roles of commercial, residential and civic space in a city as large and diverse as sydney.

the opera house is not just unique - it is singular; that is to say there are no other attempts in sydney to try an achieve any new, radical notions of form or space. the problem seems partly to be one of image - that is to say that in sydney, the view of the natural landscape is so charged, that all architectural effects are seen as only happening as particular views. i would venture that more than 80% of visitors to the opera house never go inside. it is not enough to say that because the interiors were bastardised by the government, they don't relate to the exterior. rather, the problem is that the powerful moments in sydney are based on a "post-card" view of the world - if it looks good on a postcard, that's OK. other than the harbour itself, there is very little evocative "space" in sydney.

there are some interesting buildings in sydney, but most of those are private houses. the government of NSW and sydney are too conservative and too restricted in their vision of the city to allow anything very interesting to happen.

the MCA held 2 international competitions in the last 10 years for a new facility at circular quay, to replace or amend the maritime bldg and both came to nothing. there was no political will or effort made to carry either winning proposal forward. the existing buidling is only partially interesting and if based on some dubious conservation claim it is felt the existing building needs to be kept, then offer up an alternative location for something that actually challenges the role and spatial organisation of a contemporary arts gallery.

the buildings by piano and foster are little more than polite corporate solutions with extra polish that you would expect elsewhere. they are certainly better than most things in sydney, but hardly significant in the large scheme of architectural life.