Proposed Perth Opera House looks like lamb rack and a bunch of other unusual stuff too.

THIS could be Australia’s most delicious building - if they build it. Here’s a sneak peek at at Perth’s proposed opera house, and some of the weird things it resembles.

What does this remind you of?

A PERTH architect has come up with a deliciously appetising design for an opera house in the West Australian capital that looks exactly like a rack of lamb.

Check it. Opera House design. Lamb rack. It’s hard to tell which is which. Mmmmm…. Designalicious.

“The underlying brief was very simple,” architect Shane O’Riley said this week when speaking of his proposed $1.2 billion cultural centre, which would sit on Perth’s Elizabeth Quay riverfront development site.

“It needed to compete as an icon against concert halls and opera houses around the world, not just Sydney.”

There’s no word yet as to whether potatoes will be part of the design.

O’Riley makes a fair point. Perth needs an icon. Something to make the world sit up and go “wow, the world’s most isolated city has so much more to offer than shark-riddled beaches and cashed-up FIFO workers throwing up outside Northbridge nightclubs”.

And what better way to celebrate the great agricultural wealth of the west than a building that brings to mind the harvest of the land? Then again, you could argue the proposed opera house more closely resembles an echidna.

Whether to build this thing is proving a thorny issue.

This is also a likeness of great cultural significance. The echidna is one of just two monotremes known to science, which means it lays eggs yet still produces milk for its young. This could be interpreted as a symbol that while Perth is geographically isolated and exists in its own little universe, this major international musical facility would connect the city to the teat of global culture. Or something like that anyway.

Others say the proposed building looks like a Venus fly trap.

You could get The Bangles in to sing Venus for the first gig at the new concert hall.

This could represent the richness of music as an antidote to the fickle allure of mining wealth, which could vanish at any moment with lethal consequences if the Chinese economy falters. Or something.

Game of Thrones fans have weighed in, as they do on most issues these days, suggesting the design is a nod to the Targaryens’ dragons.

Beauty and the beast. The question is which one is which?

GoT fans have a bit of a habit of seeing the entire world through a warped Westeros lens but in this case they may have a point. Don’t tell them, though.

In reality, any true cultural icon in Perth would more likely have a distinctly West Australian, rather than Westerian, flavour. It is therefore highly likely that this futuristic deign is cleverly referencing the most famous image ever to come out of the west.

We refer, of course, to Ben Cousins’ raised middled finger, a WA cultural image that will echo down the ages.

Cousie says up yours to critics of this visionary project.

Or who knows? Maybe the designer was just drunk.

The project is unlikely to see the light of day, with Shane O’Riley claiming politicians lack vision, while the politicians argue that the money required to build it is unlikely to be available.

What do you think? Beautiful or ugly? Should politicians spend money to create an icon of architecture in Perth?