Once there was a vision of Circular Quay being the major urban square of Sydney. In 1989, when Winston Barnett arrived from the UK as the new professor at the architecture school at Sydney’s University of Technology, he saw an opportunity to develop the space as a “wet piazza”.

In early 1995, the then-Liberal government held a competition to reimagine the entire area, looking for grand visions that could retain the Cahill Expressway and railway line. The winning scheme featured a giant verandah overhanging the water’s edge, with upgraded wharves. One month after congratulating the winners (including your third-placed columnist), premier John Fahey lost the election. The ideas were shelved and disappeared.

Every state government since has declared the importance of Circular Quay as a major urban and infrastructure space. As The Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial noted this week, in 2015 the Liberal government of Mike Baird pursued plans for a broader redevelopment, promising to sell $200 million of government-owned waterfront property to pay for the upgrade. It made the sales but delayed the plans. During the 2023 election campaign, Labor promised a $716 million upgrade of the ferry wharves and promenade, then scaled back the vision when it won power.

It seems Circular Quay is more political graveyard than grand urban space. It’s descended so far that now we can’t even get the dilapidated and decrepit wharves brought up to a decent standard, despite the government spending $190 million to date. That’s a lot of money just for planning.

And the Quay’s failing wharves are but a microcosm of the need for better design and upkeep of Sydney’s urban spaces.

In a city that prides itself on its world-class harbour – with great adornments from the finger wharves of Walsh Bay to the long wharf in Woolloomooloo Bay (which Paul Keating, happily, was unable to demolish) and many fine private marinas – it is deeply ironic that we cannot get the most important land and water intersection right.

The issue is not just repair of the Quay’s wharves. They should be redeveloped as the grand wharves of Sydney. Three airy storeys, viewing areas, with cafes, restaurants and public facilities on the upper levels, while ferries come and go into accessible, comfortable, enjoyable wharves. The brilliant work at Walsh Bay is the template. It should be the job of government, but maybe in these market-driven days we would have to resort to the rentals that could pay for it.

But wait, there’s more. Taller, longer and better-designed wharves are only the beginning. We could now set about making that grand waterside meeting space that Sydney so richly deserves.

First, remove the ugly enclosing transport ramparts that create such cramped spaces. With lessons from underground metros, we could bury infrastructure rather than political ambition. With the railway underground, now we can remove the Cahill Expressway. The Sydney Harbour tunnel, and the volume of car traffic it delivers, renders the upper-level road, and its reduced traffic, unnecessary.

The deceptively huge area between the wharves and the buildings could be a magnificent urban space. The dynamics of throngs entering and exiting the city by bus and ferry have always been exciting. My memories as a teenager arriving from the dull north shore, past the Opera House under construction, through the city gateway, spurred my long love of cities and architecture. The space is perfect for that dynamism, with a backdrop of the heritage Customs House and the gorgeously revamped AMP building, Sydney’s first skyscraper, and museums and cultural buildings on the flanks.

Imagine the shade and sounds of a wild grove of trees, maybe recalling the original landscape, that filters the air, and people to the water. Also perfect for large gatherings, this space has everything the police identified as a problem for the Palestinian protest at the Opera House, our other great public space. It’s big and accessible.

The Maritime Union of Australia says architects are to blame for not being practical. Au contraire, I say. Architects have always had grand visions for what Circular Quay could be, should be.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore has long advocated for an urban square at Town Hall, demolishing the current Woolworths and other buildings. But that would have nothing of the qualities of a sun-filled, open-air space with magnificent finger wharves reaching out into the “wet piazza” at Circular Quay.

It’s the front door, and departure point, for Sydney. Finally, we could have something as a worthy next-door neighbour to our magnificent Opera House.

Tone Wheeler is president of the Australian Architecture Association and the design director of environa studio, which specialises in social and sustainable architecture.

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