Sydney laneways

Sydney was not a master planned city in the traditional sense, but it is a romanticized misconception that the city was designed on the fly.  At the peak of the colonial era and western imperialism, at the founding of a new city, there was almost always an urban planner, an architect, a philosopher or a government official dictating the layout of the new settlement and in Sydney it is true there was none.  In 1788 at the arrival of the First Fleet into Sydney Cove, Sydney’s earliest buildings were actually built along planned streets running south from Sydney Cove, parallel to the Tank Stream.  There were also cross streets traversing the hilly landscape east to west.  These streets carried all primary bull and horse drawn cart traffic.  They were busy and congested streets, wide in comparison to the buildings themselves.  But unmindful of the planner’s grid, a series of laneways emerged from the foot traffic seeking a more human scaled experience of traversing from building to building.  

There is a common cliché in planning that if a designer doesn’t know where to put a path between two buildings, all they need to do is wait a week and see where people most commonly tread across the landscape.  In a similar way, the laneways of Sydney map the most direct routes from building to building, house to house.  The laneways in modern Sydney’s Central Business District, an urban scale that duplicates itself throughout the city, are one visual remnant to the lack of planning. 

Historically, during the 19^th century, the laneways were a common means of accessing boarding houses, service entrances, small merchant shops, and loading docks for the warehouses.  In the 20^th century, as Sydney’s status as a global city increased, the laneways became the target of urban renewal.  Many of them were swallowed up by the development of office blocks.  Many of those that did survive lost their function as the houses and businesses that they accessed closed up or were converted for other uses.  Warehouses left the central business district for neighborhoods closer to the wharf at Darling Harbour and the Inner West suburbs. 

Tank Stream Way, Photo: Jonathan Lee

Today, amongst the towering skyscrapers of central Sydney, the laneways provide an intimate glimpse into the city’s history and geography.  They are practical throughways for business people grabbing lunch and running errands.   Refurbished storefronts, terrace houses, and warehouses along them contain cafes, restaurants, bars, and boutiques that enliven the laneways.  Hidden Networks – Forgotten Spaces and the City of Sydney, hosts an exciting series of art installations each year within the laneways themselves.  Their presence is reemerging within the urban landscape of the city.  

The laneways of Sydney Central Business District, the Rocks and Miller's Point.  Illustration Jonathan Lee