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For decades, it has been a concrete and sandstone cavern buried beneath the parkland of Stargazer Lawn on the naturalistic headland at Barangaroo.
The Cutaway was envisioned to be a venue for markets, festivals and even hosted the 2022 edition of the Biennale of Sydney, but poor acoustics and its open roof relegated this souless box to a blank backdrop for several car commercials.
From May, the Cutaway will join Rozelle’s White Bay Power Station as Placemaking NSW’s newest harbourfront flexible events space after closing for a major overhaul two years ago. The $100 million venue will be allowed to operate 24/7 for thousands of visitors, after the state government overrode protests from nearby residents.
Premier Chris Minns said the revamped Cutaway would join the Opera House as one of the great venues on the harbour foreshore, strengthening Sydney’s status as a world-class city for arts, culture and big events.
“This extraordinary space is unlike anything else in Australia – deeply connected to Sydney, architecturally striking and built to host major events that draw visitors, investment and creative talent to our city,” Minns said.
About the size of the Opera House’s main performance hall, the Cutaway came close to being named a national Indigenous centre until the former Coalition state government got cold feet, and former Labor prime minister Paul Keating backed a flexible venue space drawing inspiration from the Musee d’Orsay, a former Paris railway station turned museum building. The $600 million Indigenous cultural project, Buruk, was later shelved.
The new-look Cutaway will be a mixed-use, all-weather event centre, with capacity for 3000 visitors and a commercial kitchen fitted to host corporate events, gala dinners, markets and fashion shows. Across two mezzanine levels are two gallery rooms and a First Nations education space to feature Indigenous art exhibitions. There are dressing rooms and a green room.
The site – close to the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct – is expected to host the National Indigenous Fair in July, and Sydney Festival and VIVID Sydney in future years, along with art exhibitions, festivals, performances and other community gatherings. It will be open to bookings from private operators including for weddings and product displays from August.
The open voids have been enclosed with two layers of glass separated by an air pocket to improve acoustics, drawing natural light while delivering high-quality sound suitable for premium music and major events.
The centrepiece of the space is 13 sculptural timber trees as tall as 17 metres. Each features as many as 115 timber pieces puzzled together. Acoustically treated to minimise noise transfer, each tree weighs up to 950 kilograms.
In February, Planning Minister Paul Scully intervened to allow the venue to operate around the clock, overturning a decision from bureaucrats to scale back trading hours at the site after residents voiced concerns about late-night noise.
Millers Point Community Resident Action Group president Anne Crabb said the opening would be a case of “wait and see”.
She said locals’ concerns had been somewhat eased by a liquor licence application that proposed the venue trade until midnight.
“It’s late, but we’re relieved they won’t be serving alcohol at 2am,” Crabb said. “We’re going to be asking the government to not let the [ground-level] lift go to the Stargazer Lawn after 10.30pm to ensure visitors exit through the Barangaroo metro station and not the residential streets of Millers Point.”
Delivered by Infrastructure NSW in partnership with FDC Construction & Fitout and architects fjcstudio, with First Nations designers Shannon Foster and Jake Nash, the fitout embeds Indigenous cultural expression and sustainability throughout the design.
Fjcstudio design director Richard Francis-Jones said the design celebrated, rather than concealed, the original exposed sandstone cliff, which rises 14 metres in height.
“We were thinking not just about the beauty of that sandstone and the way the light hits it but also recognising that it is something of a scar on Country and something in some way a source of pain and damage that has been done to the natural headland and natural landscape of Sydney Harbour,” he said.
First Nations knowledge and storytelling are embedded throughout the design, including through spatial forms inspired by rock shelters (Gunya) and the Port Jackson fig (Damun). The sunlight through the skylight cast shadows of the sculptural tree canopy, reflecting saltwater ceremonial markings on the floor, Francis-Jones said.
“This is a multi-use space that’s one of the hardest things to design because of the acoustics and lighting which needs to be contained,” he said. “But what we’ve managed to do is to bring natural light into that space, and it is now filtered through the sculptural branches of these tree like architectural elements.”
The Cutaway will open with weekend events including performances by Sydney Dance Company and Barayagal Choir alongside public access to the new gallery spaces, workshops and educational tours.
Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Nathan Moran said while he was disappointed the Cutaway was not an Aboriginal-owned and controlled cultural space, he was pleased it included dedicated Aboriginal cultural space, a spot for Aboriginal community events and a “much-needed event space for all”.
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