australia

i’m about to embark on a long trip around the world starting before christmas to visit family in belgium and ireland and then onto australia for a month. i’d love to hear from anyone about design and cultural attractions in australia, i’ve never been there before. i get into sydney on new years eve, meeting some friends there and then plan on driving the coast roads down through melbourne and onto adelaide to stay with my sister. i would like to connect with any willing designers, engineers, business, universities and events out there, i’m doing a bit of reconnaissance, i might move out there after finishing my degree in mec.eng. here in ny which should be next year. any suggestions, links or references are kindly appreciated…

Hey mate, I’m in Sydney so drop me a message when you get in!

I’m definitely no expert on the design scene here but from what I see / have experienced, the events are mostly small with the exception of a few large events that tour the country every few years. There are small studios and workshops that frequently open their doors for open nights etc.

I found Melbourne was very open with their artistic culture when I was living there in 2009. Sydney definitely has a buzzing scene, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look. Can’t comment about Adelaide, no experience there.

Cultural attractions eh? Well a favourite bar of mine is in Bondi, called “bucket list”. Nothing special apart from the fact that it’s situated on Bondi beach and allows customers to drink there even when they are covered in sand etc.

There’s also the standard attractions like the powerhouse museum (a very large design museum).

Lots to see, it’s just a matter of knowing what you like.

I hope some other Aussies chime in, very interested to hear what they say too – they might be able to offer more specific knowledge :slight_smile:

I’m not to sure about what goes on down that way but check out the DIA if they have any events on too that you might be interested in or send them an email to find out where they would recommend http://www.dia.org.au/

As suggested Powerhouse in Sydney: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/

I’d definitely recommend stopping in Canberra. Lots of people bag it as boring, but it is a stunning planned city (by Walter Burley Griffin) and it has my favourite museum in the world, the Australian War Memorial:
http://www.awm.gov.au/.

This is the view from the War Memorial across to Parliament house:

Also, drive around Yarralumla, all the embassies are in that suburb in between suburban houses. Great to see these monuments to National pride and ego, full of flags and security guards and fleets of limos, next door to a house where a guy is mowing his lawn with his shirt off.


Melbourne is great too, you can get the “Melbourne Design Guide” as a walking/ tourist guide. Melbourne is very easy to get around with public transport: Home - thedesignguide

Over Christmas/ New Year/ January you can see some cricket at the MCG (the Ashes are about to start) with 100,000 of your closest friends or the Australian Open tennis.

The drive from Melbourne to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road is fantastic. I’m biased to Adelaide but it’s about the quarter the size of Melbourne, but with way better beaches.

The Art Gallery of South Australia has a great William Morris collection Art Gallery of South Australia - AGSA plus the original Lockheed lounge, purchased from Marc Newson’s first student exhibit of it:

Adelaide’s got so many wineries, very nice drives from cellar door to cellar door, but you can do bus tours so you can drink and not worry about driving. I’d recommend Coriole in McLaren Vale , Sevenhill or Annie’s Lane in the Clare Valley , Bird in Hand in the Adelaide Hills , and Penfolds in the Barossa, but really anywhere you can’t go wrong.

Adelaide in January has the cricket (Adelaide Oval redevelopment will be finished), the Tour Down Under (http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/ and in Feb/ March if you are still around the Festival and Fringe (http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/, http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/) plus the Clipsal V8 race (http://www.clipsal500.com.au/).