The campus trees have changed into their autumn colours, burning red and orange — the university’s speckled sweater. Students nestle by the walls, coffee cups warming their hands, pink noses buried in plaid scarves. A girl waits in line at the Courtyard Cafe, thumbing through a copy of Madame Bovary (in the original French, of course). It’s the season of wool sweaters and tortoiseshell glasses. Of warm drinks and museum visits. Your friends annotate their readings and stuff them, loose, in their bags. You run through sandstone halls to make the next class, leaving the candelabras swinging by their chains. It’s romance, it’s academia. It’s the reason many of us chose this university.
USyd’s architecture is the backdrop that ties together this scene — an atmosphere of prestige to some, of pretence to others. What value would your English degree have, if your classes weren’t in the Great Hall? How would you wear your docs with pride, if you were walking through UNSW’s concrete geometries instead of our neo-gothic castles? How could one possibly romanticise studying for an otherwise mind-numbing test?
Unfortunately, the dark academia backdrop is exactly that: dark.
In the heart of the university, there is a cluster of time machines, scattered along the lawns. Enter any of these, and you’ll be transported to another time. The first one will transport you to an age of classics, class, and beauty.
Sydney University’s Quadrangle was built in 1854 by English architect Edward Blacket, designed to imitate the Victorian Gothic styles of Oxford and Cambridge universities. The Great Hall was the Quad’s first installation, built to promote the university’s connection to the great monarchs of England. The stained glass windows are perhaps the most extraordinary part of this building. They are particularly striking as sunlight filters through them in the evenings, shattering colours into a million beautiful fractals. These windows feature thirty-five depictions of significant men of ‘learning and invention’ (exclusively British). At either end of this building, two windows recall once more the universities of Cambridge (East) and Oxford (West), as well as stone carvings commemorating monarchs Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. As prestigious as this sounds, the ideological implications of these constant social comparisons mask the self-interest of a few elite. The Great Hall was initially intended to be constructed in a practical Elizabethan brick style. Rather than this utilitarian approach, Blackett convinced the board to move to a rather inefficient Gothic style to emphasise the university’s grandeur, as well as its ties to more ‘appropriate’ English architecture. The university’s Vice Provost, Sir Charles Nicholson, stressed that the Quadrangle consisted of a ‘suite of buildings’ that would form an ‘ornament to any of the capitals of Europe […] the influence of the university extends throughout the whole colony’. It was the architecture, not the academics, that upheld the status of USyd. And the population that could afford a university education consisted of elitist, highly-educated colonists who revered British culture above all.
Blacket, a proud member of the Anglican Church and previous ‘colonial architect’, extended the language of prestige into religion — a tradition maintained by the residential colleges on campus. The Gothic revival itself originated from the Oxford Movement, a religious revival campaign that began at Oxford University. The movement’s idealisation of medieval church traditions led to the widespread construction of Gothic architecture not only in religious structures, but in schools, libraries, and other secular buildings. Within the Great Hall, thirteen angel statues, each representing an arts subject, adorn the Great Hall’s roof. It’s evident the group of Anglicans that founded the University of Sydney kept theology at arm’s length from the new institution. Furthermore, the university’s intention to provide ‘secular education’ was facing outcries from religious institutions, which ultimately led to the establishment of residential colleges. The colonial government’s Affiliated Colleges Act allowed the four main Christian denominations to establish colleges at the university, emulating the elite structures of Oxford and Cambridge (in the same neo-gothic style, of course). When we consider the university’s explicitly theocentric, Oxbridge mimicry, we can often contextualise current events. Notice the culture of colleges — increasingly exclusive, traditionalist, with scandals popping up day-by-day whilst other students struggle to find an affordable room on campus. It’s no wonder that public school graduates are making up less and less of new undergraduates, whilst Catholic school graduates are increasing. Note the pro-life ‘activists’ on Eastern Avenue, particularly the most recent comparing abortion to the Holocaust. Note the sheer existence of the Conservative Club, whose USU page lauds the ‘inheritance of the Western Civilisation’. Perhaps we’ve viewed our university life through something of a classical haze. But clearly, that’s not all that the university is.
Our history doesn’t end in the 1850s, though some elements of USyd seem not to have moved much. Let’s move to our next time machine, perhaps our funkiest.
Cut to Fisher. It’s post war, and there’s a hunger for renewal, for progress. The Beatles’ ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ is number 1 on the charts. There’s a spirit in the air (or something a little more dope). Whilst the original Fisher Library (Now MacLaurin Hall) was designed to complement the Quadrangle, the new Fisher was a mid-century modern masterpiece that finished construction in September 1963. Featuring a functional design with bold horizontals, the building was modelled off the progressive universities in the United States. It was the first of its kind planned simultaneously, yet separately, for both undergraduates and senior scholars. It featured unique, student-centric spaces, including a music listening area and a rooftop terrace. The rooftop was the ‘place to gather’ — a place to study, to plan student marches, a place to protest. Highly functional, referencing ivy league universities like Harvard, and increasingly focused on student activities, Fisher reflects Australian society’s desire to move forward post-war, a place encouraging diversity and acceptance. And wouldn’t you know, the library is still a place for students to protest. See the activists handing out anti-war flyers, and watch how students avoid them like they’re bees. See the common areas, the recording rooms, the wooden beams, the internal void connecting the third and fourth floor. The architecture is what connects us to the past; it’s the thread linking contemporary Save Palestine student campaigns to Usyd’s anti-Vietnam War protests in the ‘70s.
Moving across City Road, we’ll see our next time machine, a concrete box — oh, wait. It’s a building. By the time the Wentworth Building completed construction in 1972, there was an evident student-centric progression. The building itself is characterised by its brutalism: raw concrete and bold geometry, it prioritises functionality, honesty, and social purpose over embellishments, a bold shift from the neo-gothic that once was. The building was created as a centre for the USU and the Women’s union, housing student kitchens, cafeterias, games rooms, accommodation for the SRC, Honi Soit, and clubs and societies. In their peak, between 1965-1980, these brutalist campuses were known for their progressiveness and their diverse student profile.
And finally, we move to the contemporary. The Susan Wakil Health Building, constructed in 2021, is the newest addition to the university. Opened post-pandemic, the building is fittingly modern, consolidating three areas for teaching, research, and clinical practice. The building seems almost hypermodern with its universal, though perhaps generic, international style. There are panels and panels of glass windows, and floating rooms that edge out of the building, disrupting the continuity of the building plane. The language of the health building is decidedly modern, and a little confident, perhaps a response to the terror of COVID-19. The building’s design also addresses that which its predecessors did not.
Landscape architecture firm Arcadia attempts to honour the rightful owners of the land by integrating Wingara Mura design principles within the site’s layout, in which the building functions as an extension of the landscape. The building is located at the intersection of two waterways historically significant to the Gadigal people, and acted as a meeting hub. The design allows water to cascade from two water features: connecting Upper Wakil to Lower Wakil. The integration of indigenous artist Judy Watson’s dillybag sculpture, ‘Jujuma’, celebrates the weaving customs of the Gadigal people.
Furthermore, the structure is one of three on campus named after a woman. Susan Wakil, an Iraqi-born woman who fled to Australia to escape the violence of the Farhud, was a successful businesswoman and philanthropist. She and her husband Isaac were active supporters for arts and education in New South Wales. Notably, they donated $10.8 million to provide the university with 12 scholarships a year, half of them to support regional, rural or Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. Later, they donated $35 million to unite the health disciplines in one building.
When we’re on campus, we often neglect the stories embedded in brick and mortar. Whilst the newer buildings may not have the dark academia charm that so many of us love about the university (hello, Hogwarts), they perhaps point to a more inclusive and brighter future for our students. See the girl walking out of the courtyard, leaves crunching beneath her boots — and perhaps, a book stolen from Wilkinson, tucked under her arm.
