For Sydney's architecture buffs and design aficionados, Christmas is once again coming early. Only instead of opening presents, they'll be unwrapping some of the city's most significant architectural delights.
Sydney Open returns from Saturday, November 2, to Sunday, November 3, offering a rare sneak-peek inside over 50 of Sydney's most inspiring buildings, most of which aren't usually open to the public. Punters can take in all of their favourites DIY-style with Sunday's Sydney Open Pass, or jump on one of the more in-depth Focus Tours happening on the Saturday. There's a series of after-dark tours happening, too, at the likes of the Justice and Police Museum and an 18th-century funerary railway station (where dead bodies started their final journey to Rookwood Cemetery).
On this year's program there are also a heap of new buildings, which could see you unearthing secret stone mason symbols within the Castlereagh Boutique Hotel & Masonic Club, marvelling at early Australian stained glass on a backstage tour of the 150-year-old gothic Genesian Theatre at St John's Church, and even exploring the City Tattersalls Club's historic hidden bank vault.
You'll also have the chance to suss out the opulent beaux-arts façade of 50 Martin Place, the heady brilliance of Sydney's oldest surviving synagogue The Great Synagogue, and the modernist splendour of the Harry Seidler-designed Steensen Varming office at 9 Castlereagh Street.
Images: 50 Martin Place by Peter Bennetts, The Genesian Theatre Company, The Great Synagogue