Buried beneath Barangaroo, under mounds of dirt, grass and stone, hides the biggest cultural space Sydney has seen. It's longer than a football field. Taller than 14 hobbits stacked from their heads to hairy feet.
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In a city where size matters, the Cutaway promises to matter an awful lot. The super-sized concrete bunker is more like an empty aircraft hangar, with space to spare for hosting art exhibitions, music and food events. It will open to the public on September 6, as part of a three-month celebration for the opening of the new headland park, on the western foreshore of the CBD.
"I often describe it as a big concrete box," says Gill Minervini, creative director of the Welcome Celebration program. "To be honest, in Sydney there is nothing like this. I would venture to say that in Australia there is nothing like this."
She leans her 165-centimetre frame against a concrete column, some 14.5 metres tall. "The space is vast and beautiful, in its own unique way," she says, looking up. The Cutaway is 120 metres long and 45 metres wide. One side is open to the sky and lined with a towering sandstone wall, which shines in the sun.
The concrete void was created while converting the headland from a flat wharf to a naturalistic park, with a hill rising from the harbour foreshore. Sitting above the Cutaway is the grassy "Stargazer Lawn". Below is a carpark with 300 spaces.
Sounds echo long and loud within the cavernous space. A slamming door sounds like a thunder clap. A plane passing overhead seems to make the earth shake.
"The first reaction I had when I walked in here was 'Oh my God, how am I going to fill this space'," Ms Minervini says. She will start in September with an art installation by Brook Andrew, featuring giant hanging shapes that will inflate and deflate like breathing balloons.
Each weekend over spring, the Cutaway will feature free entertainment, arts and cultural events, along with "giant picnics" – so-called because they'll be, well, really big. Longer term, the space may host a permanent centre for Indigenous arts and culture.
"You could do art here, you could do film here, you could do opera here," Ms Minervini says. The Cutaway is a bit like a football field, she adds, only bigger. But there's no plan for subterranean sports here, not yet anyway.
