The Architecture of Sydney is not characterised by any one architectural style, but by an extensive juxtaposition of old and new architecture over the city's 200-year history.
Under the tenure of early nineteenth-century Governor Lachlan Macquarie, the works of Francis Greenway were the first substantial buildings for the fledgling colony. Later prominent styles were the Victorian buildings of the city centre created out of local Hawkesbury sandstone, and the turn of the century Federation style in the new garden suburbs of the time. With the lifting of height restrictions in the post-World War II years, much of central Sydney's older stock of architecture was demolished to make way for modernist high rise buildings. Some of the most notable new buildings were designed by the Austrian-Australian architect Harry Seidler, as well as by international architects such as Jørn Utzon, Jean Nouvel, Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster or Frank O. Gehry.