Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre

In 2000, the city announced a design competition for the project, then called the Ultimo Aquatic Centre and Public Space.

[4][5] Construction was delayed due to budgetary and other concerns until 2004, when new Lord Mayor Clover Moore and the city council, responding to an energetic campaign of local residents, reversed their prior position and decided to go ahead with the full plan (then budgeted at $40 million) that had been initiated under former Lord Mayor Frank Sartor, rather than a curtailed $25 million plan that had been adopted under the intervening administration of Lucy Turnbull.

Philip Drew wrote that it was a "climax" of his work, "meshing the severely functional and the playfully sensuous.

"[12] Architecture critic Elizabeth Farrelly, who had been critical of Seidler's design when it was selected,[5] was more positive about the final result: she noted some awkwardness in the design, including its undefined entry and narrow changing spaces, but praised its "experiential qualities".

[13] In 2013, Farrelly included it on her list of the "five best buildings in Sydney", stating that while she found the external wave metaphor "slightly silly", the interior is "a breathtakingly beautiful room".