The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia,Sir Peter Cosgrove, has officially opened world renowned architect Frank Gehry’s first Australian project, the spectacular Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at the University of Technology Sydney. Gehry flew into Sydney for the opening of the new building which will house the UTS Business School.

Gehry’s sculptural Sydney masterpiece is based on the concept of a tree house and was designed from the inside-out, meaning that the exterior emerges as a result of what happens inside the building. Gehry described the building as “a growing learning organism with many branches of thought, some robust and some ephemeral and delicate.”

The defining features of the exterior of the building are its “fluid” brick façade, which responds to Sydney’s sandstone heritage, and its west-facing glass façade, which references the city surrounds. On the inside, the striking, sculptural polished stainless steel staircase is a focal point as is the Victorian ash stairway which wraps around an oval classroom on level 3.

In a media conference, Gehry spoke of “the idea that you can humanize a building,” “creating a sense of movement to replace decoration” and creating a building that was “flexible on the inside.” “The tendency to build buildings where everything is fixed for a fixed program is an obsolete notion; and we see that all over the place now,” Gehry said.

The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building is the centrepiece of UTS’s $1-billion City Campus Master Plan. It is named in honour of Australian-Chinese businessman and philanthropist Dr Chau Chak Wing who donated $20 million toward the completion of the building and also made an additional gift of $5 million for scholarships.