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Views of Barangaroo.

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The verdict on Barangaroo

Construction started on one of Sydney’s largest urban renewal projects 10 years ago and after backflips, clashes and dead deals, the Barangaroo precinct is almost complete. The Herald looks at what has worked, what hasn’t and what lessons can be learnt for Sydney’s future city-building.

19 stories
Barangaroo as seen from around Sydney.

How Barangaroo’s Crown Tower has changed Sydney’s skyline

Viewing Sydney’s CBD from its north, east, south and west vantage points highlights just how much development at Barangaroo has shaped our city.

  • Anthony Segaert
Koziol Barangaroo

What are you all smoking? Barangaroo is fine - it might even be great

It was never going to please everybody, and it’s important to have a healthy debate - but Sydney, please, must we complain so much?

  • Michael Koziol
The largely industrial Bays West precinct, which is three-and-a-half times the size of Barangaroo, is the next major urban renewal project to reshape Sydney Harbour.

‘Bedevilled from the start’: What Barangaroo can teach Sydney about planning

Planners, architects and even the premier agree: in current and future state significant projects, the government must take more control.

  • Michael Koziol and Megan Gorrey
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Barangaroo Saville
  • Opinion

Barangaroo stole our skyline and belittled the Opera House

So dominant is its feature excrescence, the Crown casino, that Barangaroo has transformed the way we see our city.

  • Margot Saville
Crown’s One Barangaroo (right) and Lendlease’s One Sydney Harbour (left) now dominate the Barangaroo headland.
  • Exclusive

Barangaroo: From the Hungry Mile to Australia’s most expensive neighbourhood

As rags-to-riches stories go, Barangaroo’s is a doozy: from a Depression-era road known as the “Hungry Mile” to the most expensive real estate in the country.

  • Lucy Macken
A detail from the painting of “Bannelang [Bennelong] meeting the Governor by appointment after he was wounded by Will [Nille?] ma ring in September 1790”. It depicts Barangaroo in the second canoe.

‘One lady shed tears’: Battle to recognise Barangaroo’s rich Indigenous history

Barangaroo fought for her headland home but Indigenous culture is now lost among “tall buildings and casinos”, leaders say

  • Julie Power
Clover Moore is lord mayor of Sydney.
  • Opinion

Barangaroo’s ‘phallic forest’ a monument to Sydney’s impotence

Barangaroo is, sadly, a great example of developer-led city-making that gifts public land to private interests without community benefit.

  • Clover Moore
Former prime minister Paul Keating and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet at Barangaroo on Thursday.

Old enemies cop it sweet in Keating and Perrottet’s architecture double act

The Premier could only watch in bemusement as the former prime minister took aim at the Institute of Architects, Lord Mayor Clover Moore and even the Herald.

  • Michael Koziol
Construction of the Crown tower at Barangaroo.

‘A symbol of wealth’: Architects give their verdict on Crown’s Barangaroo tower

At 275 metres, One Barangaroo is Sydney’s tallest building, but architects find it hard to see its beauty.

  • Julie Power
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Crown Casino Barangaroo
Oculus - the largest chandelier in the Southern Hemisphere

Crown Barangaroo bets on Asian tourism

Crown Barangaroo’s new owners will target high net-worth tourists as part of a plan to revitalise the gambling giant’s $2.2b investment.

  • Colin Kruger
Helen Lochhead and Barangaroo skyline.
  • Opinion

Public interest consistently sacrificed in Barangaroo evolution

Successive modifications to Barangaroo have seen public interests sacrificed in favour of commercial ones.

  • Helen Lochhead
A concept design of Central Barangaroo included in documents submitted by developer Aqualand as part of their modification application.
  • Exclusive

‘One chance to get this right’: Government orders shorter, smaller buildings at Central Barangaroo

Premier Dominic Perrottet will visit Barangaroo with former prime minister Paul Keating on Thursday after rejecting developer Aqualand’s plans.

  • Michael Koziol
Barangaroo’s new metro train station.

A giant cavern beneath Barangaroo is about to bridge gaps to greater Sydney

The precinct has been a hive of activity as the construction of buildings, parks and dining strips transform the foreshore. It’s been buzzing below the surface too.

  • Matt O'Sullivan
  • Opinion

Barangaroo is rubbish and now its wretched offspring are spawning across Sydney

The prized site stands as the manifestation of a corrupted process. They should have tossed this plan in the bin, not our winning design.

  • Philip Thalis
Central Barangaroo.

‘What are the next steps?’: Final stage of Barangaroo in limbo

Sydney’s long-awaited Central Barangaroo development has been dogged by a high-stakes Supreme Court battle, public backlash and ministerial intervention.

  • Megan Gorrey
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Barangaroo precinct development.

A gift or a curse? Keating’s Barangaroo vision 10 years on

Construction started on one of Sydney’s largest urban renewal projects 10 years ago. After backflips, clashes and dead deals, the Barangaroo precinct is almost complete. Has it been a success?

  • Michael Koziol
Dominic Perrottet
  • Opinion

Ugly concrete slab to shining jewel: mission accomplished at Barangaroo

The NSW premier writes that, 10 years on, the bold vision for Barangaroo has been realised, and it reclaims the grandeur of the landmark that predated the flat concrete wasteland of recent times.

  • Dominic Perrottet
Former prime minister Paul Keating has called on the state government to return to the original height limits at Central Barangaroo and compensate developer Aqualand.  16x9
  • Exclusive

Central Barangaroo tower developer should be compensated, says Keating

Aqualand warned the viability of the project is under consideration after Planning Minister Anthony Roberts’ intervention to kill off a proposed luxury tower.

  • Michael Koziol
Smart Design Studios worked with Sydney artist Jennifer Turpin on this proposal. It had a wind farm on the headline, sculpture and art on the promenade and a massive green roof created by an amphitheatre.

Unrealised Barangaroo: The plans for the precinct that never eventuated

More than 130 architects entered the 2005 design competition for what is now Barangaroo, with ideas for canals, waterside pools, and green roofs. Not one proceeded. Not even the winner.

  • Julie Power

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  • 10 stories
Sam Mitchell flies the flag after Matthew Lloyd’s hit on Brad Sewell.

Hate of origin: Inside football’s most intense rivalry

Essendon and Hawthorn have hated each other for more than 40 years, from some old-fashioned thuggery and a fake drug scandal in the mid-80s to last year’s failed bid by the Hawks to poach the Bombers’ captain.

  • 5 stories