Watch: Demolished Sydney

The skyline of Sydney has undergone constant change as buildings rise and fall. From the convict-built Commissariat Stores and magnificent Garden Palace, to towering skyscrapers and grand hotels, the buildings lining our city’s streets have played a defining role in creating the physical character of Sydney.

The stories of these Georgian, Victorian, Art Deco and modernist buildings reveal the changing forces and attitudes that have shaped the city, and the way in which our heritage has been valued and preserved over time.

Curator of Demolished Sydney, Dr Nicola Teffer, spoke with some of Sydney’s most notable architects, historians, artists, and social commentators to discover the role of heritage, both now and into the future.

Filmed for Demolished Sydney: Georgian town to global city, on show at the Museum of Sydney until 17 April 2017.

Demolished building in foreground, Harbour Bridge in background.
Past Exhibition
Past exhibition

Demolished Sydney

Demolished Sydney explores the buildings that once shaped the city’s skyline, from the convict built Commissariat Stores to the city's last island of industry, the Kent Brewery

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Dr Nicola Teffer

Dr Nicola Teffer

Guest curator

Dr Nicola Teffer is an art historian and curator who specialises in 19th-century Australian social history and photography. She was the 2012 State Library of New South Wales Nancy Keesing Fellow, and won the University of Technology Sydney’s Chancellor’s Award for her doctoral thesis in 2001. As well as Celestial City: Sydney’s Chinese Story, Nicola has curated a number of exhibitions for the Historic Houses Trust and the City of Sydney, including No Ordinary Man: Sydney’s Quong Tart; Coffee Customs; Recollecting Rowe Street; and Spanning the Decades. She has lectured in art history at the universities of New South Wales and Sydney and her work has been published in a number of academic journals.

Sepia photograph of demolished buildings in Sydney during the 1930s.

Unlocked: Demolished Sydney

Like cities across the world, Sydney has been in a constant state of building development and urban change. Our exhibition, Demolished Sydney, looks at how demolitions have shaped our dynamic city landscape

State Office Block from AMP building

Demolished: State Office Block

Constructed as part of the 1960s renewal and modernisation of Sydney, the State Office Block was an innovative and eye-catching addition to the city’s skyline

Two storey building with curved verandah at ground level.

Salvaging a future for Sydney’s demolished buildings

When important historic buildings were demolished in 20th-century Sydney, one way to remember them was by saving, perhaps for re-use, some of their more notable architectural features

Burdekin House - St Malo columns

If the fluted timber columns made for Burdekin House now look a little battered and perhaps not as elegant as they were in the mid-19th century, it is hardly surprising after surviving two house demolitions