Module

This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies standards for Year 5 and 6. It draws on the Library’s Wolfgang Sievers Collection to explore how photography, design and industry have transformed modern Australia, encouraging students to investigate how technologies are developed, used, and understood in social and environmental contexts.

Topic

Wolfgang Georg Sievers, AO (1913–2007) was a well-known modernist photographer who documented Australian architecture and industry over a career spanning almost 60 years.

See a few highlights from our collection in different formats that can be used to build your architectural knowledge. 

National Library of Australia

National Library of Australia

Wolfgang Sievers' remarkable legacy with about 19,000 prints and 52,000 negatives and transparencies captured from 1938 to 1991. His work offers an extraordinary glimpse into Australian architecture, mining, and industry. 

A large collection of glass negatives, papers and photographs dating mostly from 1904 to 1940 depicting many aspects of Australian life and architecture.

Topic

In 1957, Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) was announced as the winner of an international design competition for a Sydney opera house, to be built at Bennelong Point.

Unfortunately, architectural plans have not commonly been kept as archives. This is particularly the case for commercial and residential buildings. However, there are a number of resources which you can try.

The resources available for each house may be different, due to the fact the availability, organisation, and location of records vary from state to state.

Explore these book recommendations from the National Library staff to help library lovers of all ages get in the Library Lovers’ Day spirit!

Drawings, sketches, plans and photographs of Australian colonial architecture, ancient buildings from China and Greece, furnature designs and sketches for a proposed "ideal city" of Kurrajong.