Sydney’s Gadigal Station Secures Global Interior Design Honors at Prix Versailles 2025

Sydney’s Gadigal Station has reached a new pinnacle of international acclaim, securing the World Title and the Special Prize for Interior at the prestigious Prix Versailles 2025. Held with the official support of UNESCO, this global ceremony celebrates the intersection of culture and architecture in public spaces. The award highlights the remarkable success of the project in reimagining traditional transport infrastructure as a significant architectural landmark, further validating the strategic mission of Sydney Metro to create world-class public environments that resonate on a global stage.

The architectural brilliance of the station is the result of a high-level collaboration between Sydney Metro and a distinguished design team, featuring Foster + Partners as the design architect and COX Architecture as the executive architect. Even before this latest accolade, the station had already earned a spot on the "Magnificent Seven" list of the world's most beautiful passenger stations for 2025, published in November. This series of honors reflects a growing global trend toward integrating sophisticated, high-quality design into the heart of vital urban transit systems, establishing a new gold standard for the industry.

Historically referred to as Pitt Street Station during its development phase, the facility is centrally located within Sydney’s bustling Central Business District. It represents a key component of the six-station underground expansion that was officially inaugurated in August 2024, spanning the corridor between Central and Sydenham. Situated at a depth of 25 meters beneath the city streets, the station now serves an estimated 15,700 passengers daily. It provides rapid and reliable connectivity across the city, reducing travel times to just 13 minutes for trips to Chatswood and a mere 9 minutes to Sydenham.

The Prix Versailles judging panel described the station’s design as the "embodiment of absolute modernity," particularly noting its successful marriage of low-carbon technology, intuitive wayfinding, and the clever use of natural light. A defining characteristic of the interior space is its profound connection to the cultural heritage of the Gadigal people, the traditional custodians of the land for whom the station is named. Visitors are greeted at both entrances by "Return of the Gadi Reed," a collection of four striking cast aluminum sculptures created by artists Rowena Welsh-Jarrett, Alison Page, and Dakota Dixon. These works, which draw inspiration from traditional local reed necklaces, work in harmony with Callum Morton’s "The Underneath," a sprawling tiled art installation that adorns the interior walls of the station's foyers.

The internal layout is defined by its grand, sandstone-lined halls and ultra-modern platforms, which are equipped with specialized tubular aluminum panels designed to enhance both acoustic performance and visual appeal. The sheer scale of the construction is evident in the use of 1,700 individual sandstone panels, all of which were harvested from a quarry located on the Central Coast of New South Wales. These panels are prominently featured within the escalator shafts, leading down to the platforms. Furthermore, the Park Street entrance is anchored by six massive, monumental columns, each reaching a height of 25 meters and weighing an incredible 168 tons, showcasing the engineering prowess behind the project.

Looking beyond its primary function as a transit gateway, Gadigal Station also acts as the structural base for a major integrated urban development, which will eventually include two significant high-rise buildings. This latest international recognition confirms that Sydney Metro’s strategy is working, successfully shifting the perception of metro stations from purely utilitarian spaces to iconic urban landmarks. By blending functional necessity with architectural and cultural depth, the project has created a space that is not only a vital part of Sydney's infrastructure but also a globally competitive site of cultural and aesthetic significance.