Are the cabbies correct? Which Chau Chak Wing building is the star?
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
Elizabeth FarrellyColumnist, author, architecture critic and essayist
January 8, 2021 4.00pm
Normal text size
Advertisement
Sydney’s two Chau Chak Wing buildings could hardly be more different. One, all high-chroma exuberance, has barely a right-angle to its name; the other is a study in grey planes. One famously resembles a paper bag karate-chopped in the middle. The other strikes its architects as a “floating box” but, to many casual observers, suggests a concrete bunker.
This contrast is dramatised in reverse by the buildings’ content. Who would guess that the crumpled paper bag houses something as dully orthodox as a business faculty? Meanwhile, the bunker’s interior quivers with some of the most astonishing and eccentric collections you’ll ever see. You could see this as irony made manifest. You could rega