Heritage Festival: Curator tour of The Model Makers

As part of the 2026 Australian Heritage Festival, join city historian Laila Ellmoos for a curator-led tour of The Model Makers at Customs House. Discover the scale city model, one of Sydney’s most important urban planning tools.

The City of Sydney is the only local government in Australia that maintains and exhibits a working scale model of its local government area. Located on Level 2 of Town Hall House, the model was built in 2 stages over 30 years and now includes around 4000 buildings.

Laila will share how model makers create and maintain the models, and what they reveal about how Sydney has changed over time. There will be an opportunity to meet one of the model makers who created many of the scale city models in the display.