A bridge to empire – and beyond: Sydney’s ‘coat hanger’ turns 90

Submitted by Paul Daley on Sat, 19/03/2022 - 6:00am

The building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a powerful symbol of where Australia thought it was going – and who it was leaving behind

In early 1924, when work began on arguably this country’s most defining built structure, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Australia was torn between self-identifying as a loyal outpost of empire and one of the globe’s most innovative new democracies.

The bridge, for all its ambition, was always going to signify – in the political, cultural and (white) Australian social sensibility of the day – more than a mere “proud arch” linking the topographically close but practically remote north shore at Milsons Point to Dawes Point in the south.