There is plenty to see and do in terms of architecture and bars - usually both at the same time.

I see that via Twitter, someone at Dwell has just done a Melbourne visit so check that information out.

I was back in Melbourne for a weekend in July and had a great time. Its all about the laneways, and theres a great feeling of places/people/events just easily flowing.

The Age [http://www.theage.com.au] has a good section on food and bars, Most things currently in Collingwood.Smith Street are good. And my sentimental favourite bar is Meyers Place in the city.

You should probably reverse that trip location/time wise. Or rent a car so you can see outside of Melbourne a lot.

melbourne's southern cross rail station by nicholas grimshaw. i was there several years ago (when exiting a train) and it was madly in the midst of construction. we had to dodge scaffolding and tarps just to get out to the street, but i'd love to visit the completed building.

there's some kind of like opera house or something in sydney. that's kind of cool, i guess.

and harry seidler's house for his mum is probably worth the trip out to the burbs to find.

I heard about that Opera house, it's near a bridge right? I might check them both out.

How about any 'design' hotels in Sydney?

Thanks ESS; I will definitely check out the train station. It's a shame rail travel is so expensive ( $300 round-trip ), or I'd be taking the train from there to Sydney rather than flying.

Melbourne:
- Fed Square
- ACCA
- Melbourne Recital Centre/Melbourne Theatre Centre
- Storey Hall
- Webb Bridge
- Museum of Melbourne
- laneways and arcades of Melbourne
- Capitol Theatre
- Southern Cross Station

eek. i don't know if that is the above is the list to see or the list to avoid...!

Storey Hall looks truly monstrous!

Thanks for the rest though - Hematophobia, what do you recommend?

Melbourne has a very rigorous and interesting architectural scene. You will see buildings there that are atypical. Storey Hall, and the whole RMIT Campus, and large parts of the CBD and fringe is a treasure trove. The buildings are scene more as part of a wider urban lineage rather than discrete pieces.

Sydney is more of an international metropolis and you will find great architecture there as well. But probably more within global expectations. Having said that, I have far less experience with Sydney's architecture.

d-arch you know the funny thing is i thought about that question long and hard and really struggled to suggest anything decent but here is an attempt and it could be contro(versial) as i come from no archi background and not everyone may agree

_National Gallery of Victoria
_Collins Place (Harry Cobb and IM PEI)
_Monaco House
_Nicolas Building
_Centre Place (off flinders lane, Melbourne's take on NYC)
_Curtin House (for a great example of lots of use) but sure to take the stairs and get to the rooftop bar to see a great view of melbourne's skyline
_GPO Centre (to see what potential the architects did not exploit)
_any of the Aesop stores
_Section 8 for a bar in a shipping container

a fairly random selection but hope you get the eclectic taste of Melbourne.

featherdale wildlife park is rather interesting. also, if you can get a harbour tour of sidney, i would highly recommend it. it is even architectural: lots of amazing houses along the harbour.

i have to recommend the bagel shop "Hells Kitchen" in central place laneway in melbourne. possibly the best bagels i have had anyway. period. probably a few things on my flickr set worth chking out, most should be tagged sufficiently to be of help.


melbourne

for sydney go see the rose seidler house. i loved their relaxed attitude there, you could sit on the lounge and basically make yourself at home - brilliant.


sydney

Nobody here knows how to make bagels so that is incorrect.

Thanks for all the tips folks.
I'm out of here in about 48 hours and will be doing my best to see as many of these as possible.

Oh, and great photos p2an - thanks for sharing.

d-arch,

Enjoy. In Melbourne, have a wander along Smith Street in Collingwood. Eat, drink, watch. Its all good.

D

Hi everyone, I can't find a thread specific to Sydney, anyone know of one please pint me to it. I am planning to be in Sydney by October, so I think it is a good time to start the planning.

Tips for Sydney Arch and non-Arch please

thanks!

“there's some kind of like opera house or something in sydney. that's kind of cool, i guess.”

Some kind of opera house? Jørn Utzon won the Pritzker Prize in 2003 for the Sydney Opera House. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an honor it shares with Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China.

WTF are they teaching arch student these days?!

sydney opera house is a must, doent everyone learn about it in architecture history class?
i think that comment was a joke Miles.

mauOne, some Sydney stuff:

Architectural (Sydney architecture is more about the bling than about rigour, as someone else pointed out - but there is some good modernist stuff scattered around):

- Sydney Opera House - try a guided tour, they go places you can't otherwise. The concert hall is notoriously not to Utzon's design and the aesthetics and acoustics suffer for it, but the rest of the place is gorgeous. The Opera Bar on the concourse / water's edge nearby is a great place to watch the world go by.

- The Bridge - people like to do the bridge climb (to the top of the arch) but it costs a bomb. Being an impoverished architect, I like to walk under the bridge (both ends), you get a good look at the structure and the park under the northern end is a great spot to listen to the weird almost-music made by traffic clunking over the control joints in the bridge deck overhead. North Sydney swimming pool is nearby and is a pretty open air pool with a fab view.

- Rose Seidler House - a trek to the 'burbs (train goes there) but worth it to see the still-jarring juxtaposition of early modernism with even earlier garden suburbia worthy of an Agatha Christie story. Run by Historic Houses Trust, pay to enter.

- Australia Square - which is round. On George St, downtown. Another Harry Seidler building, lovely expressed concrete ceiling beams, cool original sticky-outy light fittings over the lift doors in the ground floor foyer. 

- Circular Quay railway station - a great bit of public architecture, on the harbour. I like it because it democratises the waterfront in a city full of rich folk busily trying to privatise any waterfront they can.

- Holman House by Durbach Block architects - cantilevered over 70m high ocean cliffs. Hard to appreciate from the street, better seen from a ways down the adjacent Vaucluse to South Head cliff path. Hard to describe the vantage point but it is haunted by architect-types with long zoom lenses. Try googling for an image of the house then google earth it for location, the shape is distinctive even from the air.

Non-architectural:

- Manly ferry - catch the slow boat (not the jetcat) from Circular Quay to Manly and back, not for Manly which isn't all that amazing, though pleasant - the ferry passes the harbour entrance and on a rough day the swell is great fun. Fight your way to the pointy end of the open air deck and enjoy the cheapest harbour cruise there is. Fish and chips at Manly beach (ocean side) is a traditional excuse for this trip. There is also a nice bar built out over the water at the ferry terminal (harbour side) too, part of the hotel there.

- October is Good Food month in Sydney, the temporary Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park, city centre, are worth it for a cheap good dinner from the market stalls run by some of the city's best restaurants, and there's an open air bar with live music. Pleasant way to spend an evening.

- Glenmore Hotel Rooftop bar, The Rocks - at the top of the hill. Great view of the harbour, opera house, bridge from the rooftop bar, otherwise it's kinda daggy.

- The Australian Hotel, The Rocks - near the Glenmore, same street. Nice old pub, good micro-brewery beers on tap, good native food pizza (crocodile!). Apparently an alright place to stay too.

- The Russell Hotel, The Rocks - quirky, boutique, cheap by Sydney standards, very handy location. The Rocks is otherwise a fairly horrendous tourist trap.

- rockpools - various natural/ semi-natural tidal swimming pools, Coogee has 4 - one of which, Wylie's Baths, is a restored 1920's bathers pavilion on stilts under the cliff. If you are female you can go to the Coogee Women's pool, for women and children only, its lovely. On rainy days a waterfall drops into the rockpool from the cliff above. Clovelly beach is a lovely pocket sized beach with a tidal swimming pool - takeaway pizza and a beer on the breakwater, watch the waves crash in, lovely. Bondi has the recently done-up Icebergs baths, an nice place to visit.

- Bondi to Coogee cliff walk - a good scenic oceanside stroll, gets crowded on weekends.

- King St, Newtown - long street from Newtown to St Peters, university district, good cheap eats and a few interesting design shops, more at the St Peters end. Look out for a shop called Made590, great design-themed screenprinted T-shirts (for men and women). 

- Crown/ Bourke Street, Surry Hills - design district, interesting shops and cafe's etc. A nice place to ramble. A nice bit of restored/ revamped modernism by Ken Woolley at the St Margarets development.

- Sydney harbour beaches - less well known than the touristy ocean beaches, and some very nice ones, Milk Beach in Vaucluse near South Head is lovely. 

- Pittwater - Sydney's other harbour - half of it is national park and only accessible via ferry from Palm Beach. Very pretty. The Pittwater YHA is truly a nice place in the bush to stay for a night or two, borrow a kayak and paddle around to Church Point to (discreetly and from a distance!) check out Richard Leplastriers house, and a recent one by Richard Cole which featured on the Australian Grand Designs tv show.

- the Blue Mountains - ok so all the tourists go there but it is beautiful. Try Leura rather than Katoomba, it's smaller and nicer. As with the Grand Canyon, as soon as you go not far from the main drag you are well away from the crowds. You can do it in a day trip but it's a long day. Various places to stay overnight too. If you have the time and access to a car and the inclination, some great bushwalking to be had.

- don't know what your budget is, but food is rather more expensive in Australia than in the States - decent cheap and cheerful places to eat in downtown Sydney are rare - Wagamama in The Galeries shopping centre (George St opp. Town Hall Station/ Queen Victoria Building) is good, and Ichiban Ramen next door in the same building is good too. Zia Pina Pizzeria (George St, The Rocks) is decent, crowded and fun. Rockpool restaurant next door is a lot pricier and is an iconic restaurant. Sailor's Thai across the road has restaurant or cheaper canteen option, nice view, good food. King St Newtown has almost every ethnic cuisine you could wish for at bargain prices. 

OK that's it - can you tell it's my day off? :)  Many forum members gave me great tips before I went to the US last year so this is my attempt to repay the favour.

To add a few notes to what Austarch said, would highly recommend "Orbit Bar" at the top floor of Australia Square. Great way to spend the first part of your first night in Sydney, in a rotating bar at the top of a Seidler Building, with great views of everything. Lord Nelson's in the Rocks is a good little Micro-brewery to check out.

I know these are all pretty obvious, but the Fish Market is worth it for cheap oyster shots in the morning. The Queen Victoria Building is really worth seeing. You really have no choice but to take the Manly Ferry and the Sydney Opera House tour.

There's a new Renzo Piano Highrise that has some cool details. Powerhouse Museum usually has good things going on. Maybe Wardle's Westfield "Sydney City" is done in the CBD? Not sure if it will be any good, but he's got some great urban projects in Mel.

Harbour Bridge. An alternative to the approx. $200+  for the Bridgeclimb is the lookout at the top of the south east pylon which is around $11. You go up the stairs within the pylon to an exhibition area (on the history/construction of the bridge) and then up to the lookout .

http://www.pylonlookout.com.au/

http://www.bridgeclimb.com.au/

As an American who has been living in Melbourne for nearly three years I thought I'd just add a few more to what looks to be some pretty solid suggestions.

Melbourne is a great city for design:  Most of the obvious designy highlights have already been mentioned (Fed Square, ACCA, NGV,)  Storey Hall and MTC theatre and most things by Aston Ragatt Macdougall are generally pretty awful in my opinion but they seem to get a lot of attention and have become synonymous with Melbourne architecture.  Mostly just go for a walk through the CBD...eye candy abounds...the south bank is a pretty walk at night...lots of buskers and several Iconic buildings (Eureka tower, convention center, some cool bridges, sandbridge precinct...avoid the casino).

If you can rent a car and go up to Yarra Valley (an hour North) its worth the drive...beautiful wine region and you can go to the Tarrawarra Museum (great rammed earth modern art museum with incredible views).  Alternatively, Red Hill Winery down the Mornington Peninsula is also stunning in vistas, architecture, food and wine.

The Melbourne Museum (Denton Corker Marshall) is pretty grand in scale and the exhibits are always intriguing.  John Wardle's Melbourne Grammar school on Domain Road is a pretty recognizable and well designed building.

http://complexitys.com/we-like/melbourne-grammar-school-in-south-yarra-victoria-australia-by-john-wardle-architects/

Unfortunately most of the best architecture in Melbourne are private residences and thus largely inaccessible (you can go visit one of Sean Godsell's homes in Kew).

As mentioned Brunswick Street and Smith St. are great, as are Lygon Street and Old Sydney Road.  I live in  suburb called St. Kilda...very beachy and given that you're coming in the middle of summer I'm sure you'll end up down this way.  Check out the Espy hotel, Veludo bar, Minx (hidden constructivist Russian bar)and Apartment 29.  If your peckish check out Bar Santo on Fitzroy St for dinner or Che Dre in South Melbourne for breakfast or lunch.

Get Shanghai Dumplings (SUUUPER cheap) in China town then go to Croft Alley (hidden laneway bar that used to be an insane asylum).

Other hidden bars in the CBD to explore:  Sister Bella, Double happiness, New Gold Mountain, Cabinet, Madame Brussels

The house museum is a pretty unique melbourne archi experience. http://lyonhousemuseum.com.au/ (bookings required)

Check out a footie game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

If you can catch a concert or outdoor cinema in the botanical gardens...it's always a nice experience enhanced only by a good aussie shiraz.

For Sydney:

Glebe is a really great area they have a few really cool bookshops with cafes in em...worth a gander.  Paddington/Oxford street are also quite fashionable and worth a visit.

Definitely don't miss the ferry to Manly, go for a hike around the Sydney Harbour National park at Manly Heads, chances are you'll see several whales from the cliffs there.

A trip to Watson's Bay (the other Head of the Harbour) is also worthwhile (you can get there via ferry from circular quay/right next to the opera house).

I'll also second the Coogie to Bondi cliff walks...there may even be an outdoor sculpture exhibit up on the cliffs while your there (cant remember if they do it in Nov or Dec). 

Really well maintained historic buildings in the Rocks/CBD.

World Bar in Kings Cross is always a favo(u)rite.

Fish market is fun and delicious, albeit a bit touristy.  Ditto for Blue Mountains.

Sorry for rambling a bit...hope this helps.

Sorry just checked the original post date..didnt realize it was from 2009 haha oops...oh well at least some of the Sydney references might be useful.  MauOne...no trip to Aus would be complete without a visit to Melbourne so I hope you can squeeze it in.