Better than the Sydney Opera House? Australia's 10 other coolest buildings

Of course, Flinders Street Station now has a rival for favoured meeting space. Federation Square stands directly opposite, angular and defiantly unsymmetrical. The buildings look like giant, unfinished Rubik's Cubes updated with a 22nd century army camouflage colour scheme, but the impact is generally in how it all hangs together. See fedsquare.com

Rose Seidler House, Wahroonga, NSW

Harry Seidler's works have a habit of dividing opinion, but Rose Seidler House is generally accepted as a striking emblem of international modernism. Key distinctive elements include an elevated ground floor, reached via ramp and glass walls designed to bring the outside inside. But the setting is important, too – it looks jarringly unnatural against the surrounding native bushland. See sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/rose-seidler-house

Parliament House, Canberra

Opened in 1988, Australia's new Parliament House is designed to be symbolic, being loosely built around two boomerang shapes. But it's also built into a hillside, making it part of the country. (We'll gloss over the fact that the hillside was largely constructed around it). The sloping lawns were originally there to let the Australian people walk all over their politicians, but terrorism concerns have seen crash barriers installed in front of them. See aph.gov.au

The Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, SA

Getting a massive stadium to have even a smidge of charm and flair is tough going. To do it as a revamp of a beloved, quirky cricket ground is even harder. But the new look Adelaide Oval has pulled off the trick, keeping the grass bank and rickety old scoreboard from the previous incarnation, while adding a series of gently curving, scallop-shaped roofs. See adelaideoval.com.au

One Central Park, Sydney

The centrepiece of Chippendale's rejuvenation is sprinkled with starchitect magic. Foster and Partners, plus Jean Nouvel, worked on different parts of it. It has won plenty of awards for environmental friendliness, but what really sets it apart from generic glass skycrapers are the light-reflecting cantilevered heliostat and the lush, green vertical gardens clambering down several stories. See centralparksydney.com

The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, Sydney

Getting Frank Gehry to design their business school was a big thing for the University of Technology, Sydney. The Canadian architect has knocked up some genuinely stunning buildings around the world, from Chicago to Prague. Gehry's trademark waves come courtesy of 320,000 custom-made bricks. And despite accusations of it looking like a crumpled paper bag, it has already become the main landmark of Sydney's Goods Line. See uts.edu.au

The Shine Dome, Canberra

One of the greatest architecture styles is Buildings That Looked Futuristic At The Time, and this certainly applies to the Australian Academy of Science's boisterously hemispherical Shine Dome. Built in 1959, this concrete dome with a series of entrance arches at the bottom looks like an alien spaceship has landed and spread its tentacles. Then, it probably looked Space Age. Now it looks lovably dated. See science.org.au

Sacred Heart Church, Beagle Bay, WA

That most beautiful church? Well, it's arguably in the middle of nowhere. Amongst the red dirt of the Dampier Peninsula, a bumpy old drive down often corrugated roads from Broome, this alarmingly white affair was modelled on a parish church in Germany. The German influence comes from the World War I internees who were corralled away in Beagle Bay. But it's the remarkable interior that shows the Indigenous influence – it is decorated in shells, with generous doses of mother of pearl.

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