Late last year, UTS (University of Technology Sydney) announced bold plans to erect a Frank Gehry designed building for their Ultimo campus. In a major coup for UTS, Sydneysiders were promised what would be Australia’s first (and in all likelihood only) Gehry building, pending approval from the University’s own council.
Well initial designs have since been approved (as part of UTS’ $900 million redevelopment of its Ultimo campus) and $150 million has been allocated to Gehry’s 16,000 square metre, 50 metre high building. But don’t ask anyone what it looks like as Gehry’s initial sketches were merely the “trajectory to a finished design”.
Says UTS Vice Chancellor Professor Ross Milbourne: “What we don’t yet know is the makeup of the outside look of the building, but we have a fairly good sense of the way it will work inside“. Wait, what?
Still, despite zero knowledge of what the building’s facade will look like, Milbourne says Gehry’s building will rival the iconic Sydney Opera House (the facade of which, he probably has seen): “I think this will … probably (be) one of the most outstanding buildings in Sydney…We’ve got the Opera House, and it’s hard to say we are going to beat that, but from what I’ve seen we’ll have an equally outstanding icon at this end of Sydney.“
Via SMH
