The new Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport will open next year. A new motorway, the M12, will provide direct access to the Airport from existing motorways. The M12 motorway runs through what was the site of the Fleurs radio observatory, operated by CSIRO from 1953 to 1963, and then by the University of Sydney until the site was closed in the 1990s. Running alongside the motorway is a shared path for pedestrians and cyclists that includes connections to existing shared user path networks. Dotted along the shared path are displays and installations related to the heritage and history of the land, and one of these relates to the Fleurs radio observatory.

Fleurs was home to three innovative radio telescopes: the Mills Cross, Shain Cross and the Chris Cross. The sculpture shown above is called ‘The absence of Shain Cross Poles’. It explores the existence and loss of the Shain Cross radio telescope, a massive array of timber poles and wires. The blade arrangement in a cross suggests the cardinal arrangement of the poles, with silhouettes of the poles embedded in the blades. The blades are centrally arranged around a circular disk, representing the planetary data that the telescope gathered. The sculpture has four arms that extend into the ground plane, reaching out into the landscape to emphasise the scale of the site. The sculpture was designed by Studio Colin Polwarth with assistance from GHD and ASPECT Studios to heritage specifications by Extent and Transport for New South Wales. (Image credit: John Reynolds)