The building was designed by W. W. Wardell and opened on the feast of Saint Michael, 29 September 1880. In 1882 a wooden boatshed was built for rowing and in 1883 the infirmary took shape. In its early years the college offered classical and modern languages, history, mathematics, the natural sciences and all other branches required for the civil service, the junior, senior and matriculation examinations, along with modern mercantile subjects. By December 1882, with an enrolment of only 70 boys, the college extended the curriculum to include English composition, writing, music, singing, drawing, painting, Irish history and oral Latin. Lessons were taught six days a week. Prayers began the day at 6.15 am, followed by Mass and study before breakfast at 8.30 am and concluded with night prayers at 8.30 pm. On Sundays and holidays the boys were allowed to sleep in until 6.30 am. Within seven years of its founding, keen observers were taking notice. In 1887, James Francis Hogan wrote in The Irish in Australia that: "St. John's College, affiliated to the University of Sydney; St. Ignatius' College, Riverview, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers; and St. Joseph's College, Hunter Hill , under the management of the Marist Fathers [sic, actually the Marist Brothers], are three educational institutions that reflect the highest credit on the Catholic population of the parent colony". The main building of the college was constructed in three stages between 1885–1930 and the foundation stone was laid by Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, on 15 December 1885. As originally designed by Gilbert, Dennehy and Tappin, of Ballarat, the building was to be a huge square, representing four identical fronts, but only the South front was completed according to plan due to financial constraints. The Riverview College Observatory was built in 1909, and was established by the distinguished Jesuit astronomer and seismologist, Edward Francis Pigot (1858–1929), who ordered a complete set of seismographs from Göttingen. Daniel O'Connell was director of the Observatory from 1938 and was later called to be director of the Vatican Observatory. Another distinguished Jesuit seismologist and astronomer, Thomas Burke-Gaffney, became assistant-director of the Observatory in 1946 and director from 1952. His studies of seismic aspects of nuclear explosions garnered worldwide attention and he served as vice-president of the Royal Society of New South Wales. The Dalton Memorial Chapel was also built in 1909. The organ in the chapel was built in 1910