Opinion: The Crown casino tower at Barangaroo is a shimmering, curvilinear phallus of architectural extravagance

Nothing symbolises Sydney’s vulgarity more than the Crown casino tower at Barangaroo, a shimmering, curvilinear phallus of architectural extravagance, writes Des Houghton.

I’m afraid Sydney is the world capital of ostentatious vulgarity.

To me, nothing symbolises this more to me than the Crown casino tower at Barangaroo, a shimmering, curvilinear phallus of architectural extravagance.

Vulgar architecture at Crown Barangaroo, according to Des Houghton.

You can’t escape it.

At 275m, Crown is Sydney’s tallest building, so it forces itself on the skyline from just about anywhere you may find yourself on the harbour.

It is so dominant I feel it diminishes the significance of Jorn Utzon’s Opera House and makes the Harbour Bridge look like a rusty coat hanger.

Of course, the Crown tower is loud and clever. That is exactly why I don’t like it.

It is showy, just like Graeme “Changa” Langland’s white boots and Alan Jones’ pink jacket, which he wore on Sky TV the other night with a lilac tie!

Sydney is a profit-driven city destroyed by ad hoc planning.

It’s a pretentious wokeville with not much to be pretentious about.

It is strangled by traffic and there is drunkenness and menace on the streets; worse than I have ever seen in New York or London. A man gets shot coming out of a restaurant and people I spoke to about it didn’t seem to give two hoots.

“Pass me a Prosecco please,’’ said one.

Poker machines suck billions out of the economy, but not a Crown, the casino where the roulette wheels are still not spinning.

I love the harbour and used to sneer at writers who said Sydney had “lost its soul”. Now I agree with them.

Despite the money sloshing around, Sydney does not appear to me to be as friendly, and uncluttered as, say, Cairns.

I strolled the restaurant promenade at Trinity Inlet in Cairns last week. It has an authenticity and vibrancy that Barangaroo does not.

I ate at Ochre and the joint was pumping and the food was better. There was a joyful, buzzing crowd, including family groups. Some were dining simply aboard the trawlers bobbing at the water’s edge. There was music on the water.

If cities were people, Cairns would be a joyous teenager and Sydney a grizzled crone.