Lines on an oval

Trumper Park, Paddington, early one morning.

Theme and variation

In response to Brattcat's query re the buildings between the two sails on the right. Enlarge it and note the pink lower building. The image on the left below was taken at the side of the pink building which is on the other side of the harbour beside the Beulah Street Wharf in the suburb of Kirribili. The image on the right below shows you the vantage point I had for the feature image of this post. I was standing in that green sward on the RHS halfway up the image. At the back of the OH there is a massive sandstone cliff cut into the promontory and up this cliff climbs the Tarpeian Steps to the T/Walk. A gateway leads into the very rear of the Botanic Gardens. You can see the gateposts, and nestling into the greenery is the sandstone of Government House.

Steppin' out

A Sydney winter Sunday easing down to evening 20C mild and calm hangin' out communally.

The curve

With apologies to Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a city in possession of a good harbour, must be in want of an icon. In this city, there is an immense affection for the bridge. The Bridge. The Opera House is an architectural wonder; it is beautiful; it graces its location. But we don't have a heart-felt and abiding affection for it. We do for the bridge. I do ...

This is the curve of the northern abutment taken from the Kirribilli or eastern side. I had my back to the opera house - literally. Beside the photograph is a 1928-29 painting by Grace Cossington-Smith who - I feel certain - would have understood inately my feelings about the "coat-hanger" - the old girl. Cossington-Smith died in 1984 after 92 years of spinsterhood on the North Shore of Sydney in the suburb of Turramurra. The style you see here is typical of her work. Walking through a gallery of her canvases, my head is flooded by the richness of a Bach 'cello suite - say, either of the Minors - or even Brahms' Piano Trio in C minor. She is definitely a Minor: full of such melancoly and loss that she sweeps up with a riot of geometry and colour.

Wasp vespiary

In long grass beside the tennis courts on campus

Constructed from what appears to be fibre, only part of this nest is active. I stumbled - not literally - upon this treasure whilst searching for the jennie wrens that also live beside the tennis courts. According to Wiki, a wasp is a predatory flying stinging insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant.

Phosphoric thread of life

Side path, St James Anglican Church, Cudgegong St, Rylstone, NSW

Blending of generations

Petersham Hill curved down to the streams of Darlington as they weaved their 1792 way down to what we now know as Blackwattle Bay. This is the parcel of land chosen by Lieutenant Philip Grose for his family estate in the early days of European settlement. This is the curvature echoed by the ceiling of the Law Library beneath.

Beyond, like a behemoth, rises the sandstone facade of the 1889 Anderson Stuart Building - the original home of the Faculty of Medicine. In an endeavour to placate, and as a symbol of obeisance, the self-regulating wooden blinds of the Sydney Law School reflect the beauty of the colours of the earth.

Geometry defines a space

Inside looking out: design has the capacity to transcend - to encase space into unimagined shapes that bend the properties of light and shadow - taking our head and our heart into altogether different territory.

Inside looking in: the flowing curvature of ceiling - pressured by the once molten sweep of sandstone beneath - edges notches of shadow up to the light.

Sydney Law School, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown Campus

Outside in

Established in 1855 in the legal precinct downtown, the Sydney Law School moved into its new home on main campus at the end of April. From the hustle and bustle of Phillip Street, adjacent to the Supreme Court, and within reach of Wentworth Court, Selbourne Chambers, Wigram Chambers and Barristers' Court, it now resides in splendid modernity at the top of Petersham Hill, aka Camperdown Campus and within swearing distance of the sandstone glory that is The Main Quadrangle.

Although The Law Library is underground, it is connected to the outside world by this glorious structure which I gather is called the Turnbull Reading Room: in reality nowt but a window, albeit fantastical. The image above is taken from the inside looking up: a glorious shaft of natural light. The image below shows the structure against the bulwark of the 9 floors of Fisher Library. The geometry of lines takes ones breath away.

A glass ceiling

Aurora Place, off Bent Street, City Touchstones by Kan Yasuda - erected in 2000 for the Sydney Sculpture Walk - is made of solid marble from Carrara, Italy.

When Johnnie comes marchin' home again ...

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