Garden Palace

The Sydney International Exhibition opened the doors of its main building the ‘Garden Palace’ on 17 September 1879. 130 years later the event still represents a milestone in the development of Sydney and over the seven months it was open 1,045,898 visitors that passed through its gates.

The main feature of the Sydney exhibition was an ornate building, the ‘Garden Palace’. This photograph was taken from Macquarie Street looking towards the gates on the western face of the ‘Garden Palace’ exhibition building. The architect James Barnet had designed the east, rather than west, face to be the main frontage. But the grandeur of this building, sketched out in a week, is still evident even from this angle. The exhibitions which first greeted visitors entering from this side were the New South Wales Court, on the left, and the Queensland and New Zealand Courts, on the right.

Photography by Richards & Co; 1879 – 1880
No known copyright restricitons
Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator