When I was planning my recent Sydney trip I was of course searching for interesting things to photograph architecturally and when I read that the new Sydney Fish Market had just opened its doors, I had to have a look. I went with a fellow architecture photographer Kathy Wallace and we booked into a small guided tour to learn more about it.
Fun facts: Sydney Fish Market is the third largest in the world by volume (and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere). It features over 40 retail and food/coffee outlets and is expected to attract over 6 million visitors annually. It’s also the third major landmark on Sydney Harbour (after the Opera House and Harbour Bridge). It uses state of the art technology in its auction room and provides more than 50,000kg of ice daily.
The Dutch Clock Auction system has been used here since 1989 (bids get lower, not higher!) and each weekday morning at 0430 is when auctioning begins with 100 buyers. Around 20 tonnes of over 100 seafood species are sold every hour. (TIP: one of the tours running here allows you to come inside the auction room and see how it all works….fascinating!).
Designed by internationally acclaimed Danish architects 3XN/GXN, in collaboration with BVN and Aspect Studios, and built by Multiplex, it boasts a roof around the size of 4 football fields that is superb to look at from afar but also from underneath.
There was just something amazing about the dappled stainless steel ceiling above some of the fish vendors inside the building….what do you think?
